KUALA LUMPUR: Datuk Seri Najib Razak took slightly over one hour to table the 11th Malaysia Plan (11MP) yesterday and it was clear that he had one thing in mind – the interest and wellbeing of 30 million Malaysians.
The message that he conveyed pointed to a prime minister determined to push Malaysians to a better place as the nation moves into the final five-year stretch of attaining the advanced nation status by 2020.
Najib’s much-awaited speech at the Dewan Rakyat, which was broadcast live, was peppered with numerous initiatives, with an emphasis on education and innovation moving forward, for 2016-2020 period to elevate Malaysians to be on par with people in other developed countries.
In the Eleventh Plan which earmarks RM260 billion as development expenditure, Najib outlined numerous infrastructure projects that would take place, and the crux of the plan was aimed at preparing them for what it meant to be citizens of a developed country.
What was crafted by the Najib administration was encapsulated in the theme of the Eleventh Plan — ‘Anchoring Growth on People’ — a strategic road map that paves the way for Malaysia to deliver the future that the rakyat desired and deserved.
“In short, we want the whole nation to benefit from the prosperity and success achieved by the nation without any sector of the population being left out,” he said.
The RMK11 will be implemented based on six core strategies and six drivers of change and allocation needed to achieve the objective of a developed and inclusive nation in 2020.
The six strategies are inclusivity, prosperity of the people, human capital, green growth, infrastructure as well as innovation and productivity.
The six game changers outlined to ensure the success of all the strategies are to raise productivity, generate wealth through innovation, raise the percentage of the middle-income class, to lay emphasis on
education and technical training (TVET), implement the green growth and invest in urban areas that have the capacity to compete.
The government also set a target to increase the size of the middle class group from 40 per cent currently to 45 per cent by the year 2020.
With regard to the development of human capital, the RMK11 is targeting to create 1.5 million new job opportunities and introduce the National Salary Index as an indicator and benchmark for employers in fixing the salary scale commensurate with productivity, skills, qualification and expertise of the workers.
The government also announced an allocation of RM1 billion for the Skills Development Fund to enable more students to receive skills and vocational education.
“Under the program, those who had undergone Technical and Vocational Training (TVET) have the opportunity to gain employment with a high income and value-added in such sectors as the oil and gas, aviation engineering, shipping and automotive,” Najib said. — Bernama