Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Even Vietnam is fast leaving us behind..

"..Vietnam's IT-relevant infrastructure and educational attainment are quickly catching up to Thailand, and arguably are soon set to overtake those in the Philippines. Malaysia has a bigger infrastructure lead, established manufacturing facilities by the likes of Intel, Microsoft and Seagate, and a much larger workforce fluent in English. But Malaysia has wholly failed to self-generate a new class of so-called "technopreneurs", as the government envisaged through its establishment of the Multimedia Super Corridor in 1996 [..]" - Asia Times Online

Malaysia is known as one of the Asian Tigers in the 90s, trailing only behind the likes of Japan, South Korea and China. But what happen to us now when even countries like Vietnam is fast overtaking and leaving us behind, in terms of economic development. To quote a recent report by CitiGroup;

"Malaysia today is a pale shadow of itself compared to 10 years ago. It is not that Malaysia is moving backward but simply that is not moving forward quickly enough."

Very true indeed. It's been awhile since I last read something positive about our country on any foreign news report. And to comment about the first quote above, Seeing almost zero political will to develop our MSC project from our PM, Pak Lah, I doubt we'd ever going to achieve much from the MSC target. I mean, when was the last time you heard about Pak Lah spoke on developing and promoting the MSC and our ICT industry? Perhaps just once a year during the annual MSC-IAP meeting. If not, it's always about pertanian and more pertanian.

Look at Cyberjaya, once touted to be the Asian model of Silicon Valley, but sadly, I don't see any new development there. No new investors are coming in. It is fast becoming a ghost town. Even the lalang there are growing on a much faster pace. Cyberjaya is suppose to be the nucleus or the heart of the MSC project, but it seems that the heart is beating too slow. So how? The only significant thing that I noticed about MSC during Pak Lah's time is that its logo and name has been changed, to MSC Malaysia. Nothing much. In simple words, to me Pak Lah has failed to carry on the vision of MSC, which is the brainchild of our former PM, Tun Dr. Mahathir, but for the sake of Malaysia, I just hope for the best to come.

Other related news:
Malaysia's Pursuit of Economic Reform to be Tested

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