According to TheStar, PM said the budget is a gesture of good economy which was expected to grow by 4.5% to 5% for 2012.
The budget focuses on people’s wealthfare such as allocation of 1.5 months bonuses for public sector and reduction in tax and a raised in pension rates.
The allocation for next year’s budget is RM251.6bil with the fiscal deficit at 4% compared with 2012’s deficit of 4.5%.
The budget announcement attracted comments from ICT industry leaders.
Remarks from Dell – Pang Yee Beng, Managing Director, Dell Global Business Center
The vibrant economy in Asia has led to a highly competitive IT industry, where skilled talent is always in high demand. The Government’s continued focus on human capital development is key to maintaining our competitive edge and long-term growth. Budget 2013’s financial incentives on quality education, teacher training, graduate employability and skills development reflects the Government’s priorities in building a skilled pool of human capital that has both industry relevance and soft skills.
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| Pang Yee Beng, Managing Director, Dell Global Business Center |
Malaysia is a strategic country for human resources for Dell, and we place huge emphasis and investment on a people-focused strategy and talent development. We continue to support the Government in building a pool of knowledgeable, creative and innovative workforce. To this end we have recently launched the Dell Malaysia University (DMU) that offers industry-recognised certifications and degrees in collaboration with local and foreign universities, professional bodies and institutions of higher learning.
A talented local workforce is essential to meet the current needs of a growing economy, and the future needs of a high-income and developed nation. We continue to support the Government’s efforts to look at human capital development holistically, with initiatives and incentives to retain top talent and develop fresh talent that are essential for the nation to remain competitive regionally and globally.
Remarks from HP – Narinder Kapoor,Managing Director, HP Malaysia, Vice President and Acting General Manager,,HP Enterprise Group, South East Asia (SEA)
HP is supportive of the Malaysian Government’s commitment to intensify efforts in providing affordable and ubiquitous access to ICT. Initiatives such as the broadband programme would help increase the adoption of ICT among more Malaysians. Promoting a more pervasive ICT environment will facilitate the transition of Malaysians to engage in high value and high yield activities online, while allowing them to compete effectively in knowledge-driven economic opportunities. Indeed, as Malaysia continues to evolve into a knowledge-based and high income economy in line with the Government’s transformation plans, ICT’s role in driving efficiencies and innovation becomes pertinent .
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| Narinder Kapoor, Managing Director, HP Malaysia, Vice President and Acting General Manager, HP Enterprise Group, South East Asia (SEA) |
Also worth noting is the Government’s continued and expanded focus on talent and human capital development. Incentives provided under Budget 2013, such as reducing the cost of learning, enhancing teaching skills in core subjects through the Higher Order Thinking Skills approach, the New Entrepreneur Foundation and the Graduate Employability Blueprint will not only help develop an entrepreneurial spirit, but also set the foundation and churn out more knowledge-based workers.
Developing a bigger pool of local ICT talent with the right set of hard and soft skills that meet industry expectations will certainly help enhance Malaysia’s global competitiveness. While the education sector focuses on improving proficiency in core subjects, more concerted efforts are needed at higher learning institutes to include course that focus on sub-specialization within the ICT industry. Developing the right talent and human capital in ICT becomes even more important now as Digital Malaysia initiative targets to create over 160,000 high-value jobs by the year 2020.
HP is also supportive of the government’s continued efforts to facilitate SMEs in growing their businesses. HP acknowledges that small and medium businesses are indeed the lifeblood of the global economy. SMEs, which make up more than 99 percent of entities registered in Malaysia, are increasingly important to the economic development of the nation. The initiatives presented under the Budget 2013 allow SMEs to take advantage of better access to financing and to harness new technologies such as cloud computing, which can enable acceleration of growth through increased innovation and productivity.
Additionally, these new technologies can also help improve sustainability, which aligns with the Government’s green technology drive. The increased funds for the Green Technology Financing Scheme (GTFS) is definitely one of the highlights of the 2013 budget as HP is also dedicated to developing energy efficient products like our notebooks and servers as well as designing green data centres that are optimised for power and cooling.
Remarks from Symantec – By Alex Ong, Country Director, Symantec Malaysia
Expanding the Reach and Growth of Entrepreneurs and SMEs
The grant for women entrepreneur to promote their business online, the New Entrepreneur Foundation (NEF)’s assistance in providing training and guidance programmes for the young ICT entrepreneur and the Bumiputera Financing Fund for Bumiputera SMEs.
Symantec welcomes the allocation of RM30 million to drive the implementation of the recently unveiled SME Masterplan, which sets high targets for Malaysian SMEs. The allocation which involves the implementation of the 32 initiatives, including six High Impact Programmes, will certainly accelerate the growth of SMEs through innovation and productivity with strategic investments. This allocation goes hand-in-hand with the significant RM 1 billion SME Development Scheme under the management of the SME Bank. These are timely initiatives to grow Malaysian SMEs and ensure that they are anchored and will stay resilient even in challenging economic times.
In addition, Symantec commends the government’s initiative for Perbadanan Nasional Berhad (PNS) to introduce the Business In Transformation programme to support efforts to modernize the operation of hawkers and small businesses to higher standards and competitiveness. Symantec believes that the guidance and advisory services in this programme which includes online business and mobile shops, together with the grant for women entrepreneur to promote their business online will greatly expand the reach of small businesses in Malaysia and spur them to go global through the Internet.
While the online business brings about great advantages such as low operating costs and increased market reach, the increasing cyber threats that businesses will face on the Internet should be taken seriously.
Symantec’s June 2012 Intelligence Report had shown that cybercriminals are indeed shifting their targets to smaller businesses as they tend to be more vulnerable due to a lack of resources.
Strengthening Human Development to Meet Industry Demand
The Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025 is expected to drive the changes needed to transform Malaysia’s workforce by producing fresh and capable talent that can meet the challenges of a globalised and knowledge-based economy.
In line with that, Symantec also welcomes the allocation of RM440 million to the Skills Development Fund Corporation (PTPK) for training loans, the additional funding of RM366 million for upgrading and purchase of training equipment for Industrial Training Institutes and National Youth Skills Institute (IKBN), and the continuation of the 1Malaysia Training Scheme Programme until 2016.
No investment in Addressing Cybercrime
While the Government has introduced measures to reduce crime rate and has allocated a total of RM591 million for the year 2013 in four key areas, cybercrime has not been taken into consideration in the four key areas. With rising cybercrime globally at 81 percent increase in malicious cyber attacks in 2011, and the cost of consumer cybercrime at US$110 billion globally, this is a key area that needs to be looked into.
