KL International Airport (KLIA) has improved its ranking further to be the world’s ninth best airport in terms of service quality in the first quarter of 2021 for the category of over 40 million passengers per annum (mppa), according to a survey.

In the global Airport Service Quality (ASQ) survey by Airports Council International, KLIA achieved a score of 4.99 over 5.00, up from 4.98 in 2020. Last year, it was ranked one of the world’s top 10 airports in the same poll.

In a statement today, Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) group chief executive officer Datuk Mohd Shukrie Mohd Salleh said apart from KLIA, the group’s efforts to improve service levels saw Langkawi International Airport (LGK) named as the world’s third best airport in the two to five mppa category, scoring 4.97 over 5.00 in the ASQ survey during the same period.

He said the group continues to leverage on the lull period caused by international and domestic travel restrictions to carry out various initiatives to heighten passenger experience and ensure airport readiness when passenger traffic picks up again.

“Although we are facing an extreme contraction of traffic, we are not complacent when it comes to ensuring our services and facilities at the highest level.

“The encouraging results borne by the airport community’s efforts at both KLIA and LGK in upholding exceptional services and safety measures in the new travel norm will certainly help restore passenger confidence,” he said.

ASQ benchmarks the world’s best airports in terms of overall passenger satisfaction for terminal safety, facilities, services and cleanliness.

Last month, the total number of passenger movements for Malaysia Airports was about two million for its local network of airports as well as its Turkish asset, Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (ISG).

Mohd Shukrie said the country’s border remains closed and movement control orders continue to be imposed as daily COVID-19 cases have been on the rise again recently.

Nevertheless, total passenger movements for the local network of airports in April was registered at 630,000, which was close to 8.0 per cent increase compared to the preceding month.

This was borne by the pickup on airline operations for the domestic sector with an increase of 161 weekly flights or 19 per cent growth compared to March 2021, sustaining an average load factor above 57.0 per cent, he said, adding that AirAsia registered the highest average load factor of 60 per cent in April.

“(A total of) 1.89 million people in Malaysia have been vaccinated under the COVID-19 National Immunisation Programme so far with the majority being front-liners and senior citizens.

“The vaccine rollout planned for the year may help pave the way for gradual recovery,” he said.

As for Turkey, the country has recently announced lockdown relaxation allowing interstate travel during non-curfew hours.

In April, due to the previous partial border closure, ISG recorded 1.4 million passengers which was a 20 per cent drop from the preceding month.

“Despite the decrease, local airlines such as Pegasus and AnadoluJet remain optimistic with the former adding Shymkent, Kazakhstan, to its network of operations with a weekly flight that is expected to launch this month,” MAHB said.

To date, they are operating a total of 56 domestic and 79 international routes in 48 countries, the airport operator said.

Source: The Malaysian Reserve

KLIA moves up to be world’s top 9 airport in Q1 2021

GEORGE TOWN: Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) has been ranked 39th in the Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings 2021 on sustainability out of over 1,200 institutions across 98 countries around the world.

USM, in a statement, said the position, which is the highest in the country, represented a huge jump from last year’s rankings (65).

“This latest achievement further cements USM’s position as among the world’s best institutions when it comes to solving humanity’s greatest challenges,” it said.

The ranking puts USM above such renowned universities sa King Abdulaziz University (46), Trinity College Dublin (57), University of Liverpool (72), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (76) and Deakin University (79).

It is also the second highest institution to be ranked overall in Asean (behind Chulalongkorn University in Thailand at 23rd), while in Asia it is placed fifth highest.

USM said, in addition to being placed in the top 50 positions in the overall rankings, it was also ranked ninth in the world for SDG16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions).

SDG refers to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

As for other individual SDGs, USM is also the highest ranked university in Malaysia in the following: SDG1 (No Poverty) at 21st in the world, SDG2 (Zero Hunger) at 29th, SDG3 (Good Health and Well-being) tied at 40th, SDG7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) at 50th and SDG14 (Life Below Water) at 58th.

“This is the third year running that USM has participated in the THE Impact Rankings, that assesses actions relating to sustainability that are undertaken by universities around the world based on the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” it added.

The University of Manchester is ranked top in the overall rankings, but the Top 10 rankings are dominated by universities from Australia.

Source: NST

USM among top 50 institutions in world sustainability rankings 2021

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has become a more attractive destination for foreigners to relocate for work, reaching 19th position as a desired country in 2020 based on a study conducted jointly by the Boston Consulting Group, global recruitment firm The Network and JobStreet’s owner SEEK Asia.

Malaysia’s attractiveness to global workers jumped from 33rd spot in 2018 and 42nd position in 2014, JobStreet said in a statement today.

Kuala Lumpur’s ranking had also improved, rising to 18th place last year from 52nd in 2014 and 42nd in 2018, the online employment portal said.

Of those who preferred to work in Malaysia, JobStreet said the top 10 countries where they were from were Indonesia, Singapore, India, Pakistan, Yemen, Thailand, China, Syria, Nigeria and Qatar.

The survey also revealed that fewer Malaysians were willing to work abroad now compared with in the previous years.

“Only 40 per cent of Malaysian respondents expressed willingness to work abroad in 2020, down from 65 per cent in 2018 and 67 per cent in 2014,” JobStreet said.

It said those who were willing to relocate to another country for work purposes comprised of students (61 per cent), Malaysians involved in digitisation and automation (56 per cent), and media and information (52 per cent).

It added that Singapore ranked as the top destination for Malaysians who wished to work abroad, followed by Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Japan.

SEEK Asia chief marketing officer Ramesh Rajandran said while most Asian destinations improved their rankings last year in terms of their attractiveness for employment, Malaysia was a clear success story as an employment destination.

“The pandemic has proven to be a key factor that has drastically changed the way global talent think about employment preferences,” he said.

Titled “Decoding Global Talent”, the study was one of the world’s largest surveys, covering 208,805 respondents in more than 190 countries, including 5,649 respondents in Malaysia.

Source: Bernama

Malaysia among Top 20 countries for foreigners to relocate for work: Study

The Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) in Sepang, Selangor has been ranked among the top 10 in the world for the category of over 40 million passengers per annum (mppa) in 2020.

This is according to the latest Airport Service Quality (ASQ) survey, which benchmarks the world’s best airports in terms of overall passenger satisfaction for terminal safety, facilities, services, and cleanliness.

Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) group chief executive officer Datuk Mohd Shukrie Mohd Salleh said with the latest achievement, the company was further encouraged to continue with its pursuit for excellence.

He said as a global airport operator, MAHB was driven by the passengers’ confidence and satisfaction in its facilities and services.

“This year, passengers can look forward to an improved journey including shorter wait times and facial recognition technology that are part of our Airports 4.0 digital transformation.

“In fact, we recently announced that we will be introducing private health safety screening services for passengers to enjoy faster clearance upon arrival. We hope to restore passenger confidence with the Covid-19 swab test swiftly done within comfortable surroundings,” he said.

MAHB said the announcement made by Airports Council International (ACI) early this month was borne out by the airport’s continuous efforts in carrying out improvement initiatives despite being severely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

It said the passenger traffic remained low due to prolonged domestic and international travel restrictions with only 1.6 million passenger traffic recorded in February.

Nevertheless the airport operator had still forged ahead with mission critical projects, it added.

“Among them were the washroom refurbishment, formation of the Operational Excellence teams that diligently identified and designed improvement initiatives and the introduction of the Exceptional People Practice Playbook, a dual language manual to guide our front liners in their interaction with passengers.

“This had resulted in KLIA improving its score significantly and achieving an annual score of 4.98 over 5.00 in 2020. In the previous year KLIA ranked 17th with a score of 4.76,” it said.

Last month, Malaysia received the first batch of vaccines for the immediate roll out of the Covid-19 National Immunisation Programme targeted at front liners.

MAHB said while borders remained close, local passenger movements for its network of 39 airports continued to be impacted by the re-imposition of travel restrictions and movement control orders due to the resurgence of cases.

As for Turkey, the country received its first batch of vaccine in January and more than 2.8 million population has received the first dose to-date with health care workers receiving the second dose in February.

“However, despite the restricted curfew over there, our Turkish operations at Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (ISG) has managed to sustain 1.3 million passenger movements for two consecutive months.

“ISG continues to be the majority contributor to the total 1.6 million passenger movements for the group in February,” it said.

Shukrie said MAHB remained optimistic on the resiliency of the demand in air travel.

“We have seen strong revival when travel restrictions were lifted in previous times, and for that, we will continue to enhance our offerings. Staying cognisant with the evolving demands of passengers and the aviation industry will help us stay ahead of the competition as we aim to be in the top five airports this year,” he added.

Source: NST

KLIA among world’s top 10 airports

KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 10): Malaysia has been named among the top ten attractive nations to logistics providers, freight forwarders, shipping lines, air cargo carriers and distributors.

In a statement yesterday, freight forwarding and contract logistics provider Agility said Asia-Pacific nations led all emerging market regions with China, India and Indonesia being the world’s top emerging markets in the 12th annual Agility Emerging Markets Logistics Index, a broad gauge of competitiveness based on logistics strength and business fundamentals.

It said the Index ranks 50 countries by factors that make them attractive to logistics providers, freight forwarders, shipping lines, air cargo carriers and distributors.

Agility said that among ASEAN countries, Vietnam climbed three spots to No. 8 overall. Indonesia (3), Malaysia (5) and Thailand (11); the Philippines rose one spot to No. 21.

Agility said China and Vietnam were virtually alone in the world in 2020, posting positive gross domestic product growth for the year after being hit early by economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The firm said early 2020 supply disruptions in China prompted some to question whether the country would experience an exodus of manufacturing by multi-nationals seeking to diversify sourcing and production.

But the 1,200 logistics industry executives surveyed for Agility’s Index indicate little desire to uproot from China or other markets, preferring by a two-to-one margin to protect their supply chains by accelerating adoption of digital tools and technology (41.3%) as opposed to pursuing multi-shoring, near-shoring or reshoring strategies (21.9%).

Of those who would consider moving out of China, more respondents chose Vietnam as a preferred production hub than any other country (19.6%).

Other Asian markets – India (17.4%), Indonesia (12.4%), Thailand (10.3%) and Malaysia – are the next leading choices.

Only 7.8% of industry executives say relocating production from China would mean reshoring to their home countries.

Asia-Pacific is the region that more respondents believe will recover from the global pandemic by the end of 2021. Of those surveyed, 55.9% predict an Asia-Pacific economic recovery in 2021; 53.1% believe Europe will rebound.

Agility Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing Asia Pacific, Andy Vargoczky said Asia Pacific experienced great turmoil in the beginning of 2020 due to the COVID-19 crisis, but it has rebounded strongly, led by the powerful performance of China and Vietnam.

He said the region is on track for a full recovery this year.

“India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam continue to improve their supply chain infrastructure and capabilities, showing why they are leaders in domestic and international logistics,” he said.

Agility said across 50 countries, China, India and Indonesia rank highest in the Index for domestic logistics.

It said China, India and Mexico are on top for international logistics with Vietnam 4th, Indonesia 5th, and Malaysia 7th.

UAE, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia have the best business fundamentals, it said.

Source: The Edge Markets

Malaysia listed among top ten in global logistics ranking

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s status as Asia’s preferred destination for business events has been recognised at the 13th China MICE Industry Golden Chair Awards, as the country was named as the Fourth Most Expected MICE Destination for 2020.

MICE is an acronym for the meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions tourism segment.

In a statement today, the Malaysia Convention & Exhibition Bureau (MyCEB) said the award marked the fifth consecutive year that Malaysia has won the title.

“This award is a strong testament of MyCEB’s strong performance and its branding efforts in promoting Malaysia as a preferred business events destination while highlighting Malaysia’s diverse offerings in terms of connectivity, state-of-the-art facilities, first-class infrastructures and great hospitality,“ said MyCEB chief executive officer Datuk Seri Abdul Khani Daud.

The Golden Chair Award was initiated and established in 2007 by the China MICE Magazine, a leading high-end tourism and conference and exhibition publication representing China.

It aimed to recognise teams and individuals who made outstanding contributions to China’s MICE industry and set pioneering examples for the development of China’s MICE industry.

“The year 2020 has been very challenging for Malaysia’s business events industry due to the COVID-19 global pandemic.

“Nevertheless, MyCEB has worked closely with the Malaysian Association of Convention and Exhibition Organisers and Suppliers (MACEOS) and Business Events Council Malaysia (BECM) to formulate MICE standard operating procedures endorsed by the Malaysian government,“ he said.

Abdul Khani said MyCEB has also launched the Meet in Malaysia campaign to further boost the business events industry and entice more international stakeholders.  

Source: Bernama

Malaysia named as 4th most expected M.I.C.E destination in 2020

Country in 24th place in World Bank’s Doing Business Report 2018

Malaysia continues to slip in the World Bank’s rankings for ease of doing business, as some countries continue to make significant progress and a faster pace of reforms.

This year showed Malaysia falling one notch to 24th place out of 190 countries in the World Bank’s Doing Business Report 2018 released yesterday, compared with the 23rd placing last year, despite improvement in the domestic business climate.

Malaysia has been slipping down the global ease-of-doing-business rankings since 2013, when the country achieved its best-ever ranking of sixth globally out of 189 countries.

Commenting on the declining trend of Malaysia’s ease-of-doing-business rankings, economist Lee Heng Guie said: “This underscores a constant review and enhancement of regulatory and compliance hurdles to improve the ease of doing business. Policy clarity and certainty as well as a competitive tax structure are key to investors doing business.

“While the government has undertaken steps to improve the business regulatory environment, the fast-evolving technology changes demand for more streamlining of regulatory platforms for businesses via-government electronic systems for its speed, transparency and efficient delivery,” Lee, the executive director of the Socio Economic Research Centre, told StarBiz.

World Bank’s country manager for Malaysia, Faris Hadad-Zervos, said despite dropping one spot in the annual index this year, the business climate in Malaysia has actually improved.

He noted that the DB 2018 showed high ratings for Malaysia in terms of overall distance to frontier (DTF) score of 78.43, compared with 77.47 last year.

“That’s up by around 1% from last year. This is due to an improvement in Malaysia’s business climate having seen the enactment of three business reforms in the past year,” Hadad-Zervos told reporters during the launch of the World Bank Doing Business 2018: Reforming to Create Jobs report.

“Malaysia’s global ranking, however, went to the 24th spot due not to actions on its part, but the overall global rankings improvement and other depth and breadth and pace of reforms of other countries,” he explained.

The World Bank Doing Business 2018: Reforming to Create Jobs report, is the 15th in a series of annual reports measuring regulations affecting 11 areas of the life of a business.

These included starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency, as well as labour market regulations.

The report covered data collection from

June 2, 2016 to June 1, 2017.

According to the DB 2018, the three notable reforms implemented by Malaysia during the past year were adopted in the areas of Getting Credit, Trading Across Borders and Protecting Minority Investors.

Commenting on Malaysia’s ranking in DB 2018, the International Trade and Industry Ministry (Miti) said in a statement: “The drop in the ranking was a result of reforms undertaken by the United Arab Emirates, translating to an increase in the DTF score of 1.87 and enabling it to leapfrog from 26th last year to a ranking of 21st this year.

“Out of the top 25 economies ranked, only Malaysia and 10 others recorded improvement in DTF scores,” Miti pointed out.

The DTF score measures the distance of each economy to the “frontier economy”, which refers to the best-performing country on each of the indicators across all countries involved since 2005. An economy’s distance is reflected on a scale of zero to 100.

“The 78.43 overall score recorded by Malaysia this year means our economy is 21.57 percentage points away from the frontier,” Miti said.

Overall, New Zealand maintained its position as the most business-friendly country in the world, ahead of Singapore and Denmark, which also maintained their respective positions in the top-three rankings this year.

South Korea moved up one notch to the fourth place this year, while Hong Kong fell one notch to fifth place.

Within Asean, Malaysia was ranked second after Singapore, ahead of Thailand (26th), Brunei (56th) and Indonesia (72nd) this year.

Malaysia ranked fourth in Asia, after Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan (15th).

In terms of overall DTF scores, the countries that saw the biggest year-on-year improvements in this year were Brunei (9%), India (8.2%), Thailand (7.9%), Vietnam (4.3%) and Indonesia (3.5%). This compared to the improvement of 1.2% by Malaysia.

The World Bank noted that over the past 15 years, Malaysia had implemented 23 reforms improving business regulations, much higher than the per country average of 15 reforms in the East Asia and Pacific region.

“As the government continues to strengthen the business regulatory framework, it is important to focus on the areas where small and medium firms face difficulties, such as starting a business,” Hadad-Zervos said.

According to the World Bank, Malaysia has an opportunity for further improvements in the area of Starting a Business, despite six reforms carried out in this area over the last 15 years. Paying Taxes is another area where there is room for improvement, it added. 

Source: The Star

Others catch up as Malaysia slips

Malaysia slipped one notch to rank 24th in the World Bank’s latest Doing Business Report, down from the 23rd place last year.

Despite the slight decline, Malaysia actually recorded an improvement by 0.96 in terms of overall distance to frontier (DTF) score, from 77.47 in the previous year to 78.43 this year.

The DTF measure shows the distance of each economy to the frontier which represents the best performance observed on each of the indicators across all economies in the Doing Business sample since 2005.

World Bank’s country manager in Malaysia Faris Hadad-Zervos said Malaysia has retained its spot among the world’s top 25 economies on the Doing Business measures.

“As the government continues to strengthen the business regulatory framework, it is important to focus on the areas where small and medium firms face difficulties, such as starting a business,” he told a news conference in conjunction with the launch of the report today.

Source: The Edge Markets

Malaysia slips one notch to 24th in World Bank’s Doing Business Report

Source: NST

Malaysia ranks 7th in number of family-owned firms

Source: NST

Malaysia takes 23rd spot in global report

After suffering a steep fall in last year’s ranking, Malaysia moved up two spots to the 23rd place out of 137 countries in the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) 2017-2018 Global Competitiveness Report (GCR) released today.

The country was in the 18th place in 2015, but fell seven spots to 25th in 2016.

In a statement, International Trade and Industry Minister (Miti) Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed said the latest ranking affirms the strength of Malaysia’s macroeconomic fundamentals and that its economic policies are on the right track. “Our exports are doing well and we continue to receive healthy flows of foreign direct investments,” said Mustapa.

In the latest ranking, Miti said Malaysia overtook Ireland and Qatar and remained ahead of economies such as South Korea, China and Estonia.

“We also maintained our position as the most competitive among emerging economies in East Asia and the Pacific region, as well as among 20 economies in the transition stage from efficiency-driven to innovation-driven. It is important to note that all the countries ranked above Malaysia are developed and of high-income economies,” said Miti.

At the 23rd place, Malaysia was overtaken by Australia, Taiwan, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore and the US, among others, and obtained a performance score of 5.17 out of seven, up from 5.16 last year. Overall, the report ranked Switzerland as the most competitive economy in the world for the ninth consecutive year, ahead of the US and Singapore, followed by the Netherlands and Germany.

The GCR is an annual report published by the WEF based on the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) that combines 114 indicators integrating both macroeconomic and microeconomic aspects of competitiveness. These indicators are grouped into 12 pillars, comprising institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health and primary education, higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labour market efficiency, financial market development, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication and innovation.

Malaysia was among the top 50 countries in each of the 12 pillars, despite declining in six of them. It performed most strongly in the financial market development, where it was placed 16th, and improved the most in the health and primary education pillar, advancing 14 positions to 30th.

Mustapa said the country’s competitiveness can only be improved if there is coordinated actions among the government, private sector and civil society.

He said continuous efforts are being made by the Malaysia Productivity Corp and the Civil Service Delivery Unit, together with relevant parties, to ensure the country’s achievements are accurately reflected in both the soft and hard data compiled to measure competitiveness.

“Looking ahead, while the improvement should be welcomed, we must not get too overwhelmed and lose sight of future challenges. The landscape is rapidly changing and thus we must ramp-up our efforts in fostering greater public-private partnership collaborations and being in the forefront of future trends including Industry 4.0,” said Mustapa.

Source: The Edge Markets

Malaysia up 2 spots to 23rd in global competitiveness ranking

Source: NST

Malaysia ranked 2nd in S-E Asia

Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) says it has accomplished its mission by being listed in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2018 Top 1,000 list.

In congratulating the university, MCA deputy president Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong said UTAR was ranked in the 501-600 band on the list, above several Malaysian institutions.

“We hope this joyful achievement can be shared with more people.

“We cannot forget MCA’s support for the past 16 years,” said Dr Wee, who is also Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, on his Facebook post.

UTAR president Prof Datuk Dr Chuah Hean Teik said the university – set up by MCA in 2002 – is humbled by the ranking.

“We will work even harder in teaching and research, as well as international and industrial collaboration, because we aim to provide quality higher education to as many youths as possible,” he said.

UTAR is one of eight Malaysian universities to make this year’s THE World University Rankings 2018 Top 1,000 list, which was released on Tuesday.

Universiti Malaya joins the Top 400 as a new entrant (351-400 band) on the list.

UTAR and Universiti Tenaga Nasional also join the table for the first time, in the 501-600 and 801-1000 bands, respectively.

Universiti Putra Malaysia, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and Universiti Teknologi Petronas are ranked in the 601st to 800th band.

Malaysia is one of the leading emerging university nations in Asia, said Times Higher Education Global Rankings editorial director Phil Baty.

“It has one of the world’s fastest growth rates in research paper outputs, PhD training capacity has increased, and it has the wealth needed to invest in the higher education sector,” he said.

THE’s World University Rankings are global performance tables that judge research-intensive universities across all their core missions: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

Source: The Star 

Ranking will drive us to work harder, says UTAR

Seven Malaysian universities have been listed in the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings Top 50 Under 50 2018.

Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh said Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) was the highest ranked institution at the 15th spot.

The 44-year-old varsity was at No. 17 last year.

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia is in 16th place, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia at 21st and Universiti Sains Malaysia at 23rd.

“All our research universities are not only in the top 50 but in the top 23 under the QS World University Rankings Top 50 Under 50,” he told reporters after launching the Sports Leadership Transformation Programme at UPM yesterday.

The other universities to make the list – released on June 8 – are Universiti Teknologi Petronas (91100), Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) (101-150) and International Islamic University Malaysia (101150).

Except for Universiti Malaya, all the other universities in Malaysia are below the age of 50.

Idris congratulated UUM for debuting in the rankings this year.

“The 33-year-old university’s position in the 101-150 band shows that its focus to be a niche university, which focuses on management and social sciences, does not prevent it from competing and shining among other institutions,” he said.

He said UUM became an Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International (AACSB) accredited institution last year, adding that this has contributed to its ranking position.

AACSB is the hallmark of excellence in business education, and has been earned by less than 5% of the world’s business programmes.

UUM vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Seri Dr Mohamed Mustafa Ishak thanked the UUM family “who is committed to the success of the university’s agenda”.

“This achievement shows that UUM’s strategic plan started in 2010 is bearing results,” he said.

He also hoped that staff and students would continue to carry out the university’s agenda so that it could compete with other renowned international universities.

UPM vice-chancellor Prof Datin Paduka Aini Ideris said the university had always focused on the fundamentals of teaching, research and services.

“We work hard to ensure quality education, quality research that benefits the community and produces all-rounder graduates with holistic and entrepreneurial skills,” she said.

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore tops the list this year followed by Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology.

Source : The Star 

Seven Malaysian varsities make it to QS world ranking

Source : NST

Step up transformation efforts

Source : NST

Malaysia favourite among China luxury travellers

Research universities’ hard work pays off with significant jump in global ranking

Having improved their ranking, the country’s five research universities have made it to the top 1% in the world out of 26,000, with its oldest university, Universiti Malaya (UM) on the verge of being among the world’s top 100.

Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh said UM, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) and Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) generated more than RM6.18bil in research revenue between 2007 and 2016.

“This is a 55.3% return on research investment from the Government’s initial investment of RM3.98bil,” he said, adding that most of the varsities were also celebrating their 10th anniversary as a research university.

UM rose by 19 places to the 114th position in the QS World University Rankings 2018.

Idris said UM had consistently improved its rankings since 2013, and it could be in the top 100 universities worldwide in a year.

“In the span of four years, UPM has moved up 182 places to 229,” he said, adding that this was an average of 45 ranks every year.

UKM rose to 230, their highest jump, while UTM moved up to 253 and USM ranked 264, he added.

UKM’s jump, he said, showed the potential for the young university to “soar upwards”. Higher Education Ministry director-general Datin Paduka Dr Siti Hamisah Tapsir said the strength of these universities lay in their lecturers and researchers, who greatly improved their academic reputation through high-impact research, publications and citations.

UM deputy vice-chancellor (academic and international) Prof Dr Awang Bulgiba Awang Mahmud said their hard work had paid off.

However, he added, it would not be easy to enter the top 100 as competition would become stiffer the higher they rose in the international rankings.

UPM vice-chancellor Prof Datin Paduka Aini Ideris said they had achieved the highest score among local universities for the international student indicator besides improving in their academic reputation, employer reputation and faculty-to-students ratio.

She said the varsity planned to increase its international visibility in order to make it to the top 200 by 2020.

USM vice-chancellor Datuk Dr Asma Ismail said their success was due to “co-learning” and working together with the other research universities.

According to UKM vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Noor Azlan Ghazali, their jump in the rankings would drive UKM to further improve its reputation.

Source : The Star 

UM leads local varsities into top 1% worldwide

Source : NST

Five research varsities move a notch up