Logistics industry in Malaysia has much room for improvement – LPN
21 Jul 2022
Logistic Productivity Nexus (LPN) will address issues relating to the logistics industry and ensure to have a world-class infrastructure while enhancing local knowledge to bring about change in the local industry, says its president Datuk Seri Michael Tio.
He said the logistics industry in Malaysia has much room for improvement to be the preferred logistic destination in ASEAN and Malaysia has a comprehensive infrastructure for the logistics industry to thrive while having good connectivity via land, sea and air.
However, he said, there are still many more aspects that need to improve in order to be acknowledged.
“Institutional and regulatory mismatch, the bottleneck at borders, low-value chain activities, insufficient and unskilled manpower, among others are some of the issues that need to be addressed and we will address these issues step-by-step,” he said in a statement released by Malaysia Productivity Corporation (MPC) today.
Tio said one of the key implementations that the governing committee will put in place is the introduction of a key performance indicator (KPI) for various stakeholders of LPN and execution strategies within the next five years.
“We will report our progress and results periodically so that stakeholders and industry players can keep track of the transformation. We hope that with progress, we are able to change the perception of both local and foreign players on our nation’s logistics standing.
“Perhaps, the local industry too can embrace the change in order to elevate themselves to be on par with global players who have a presence in Malaysia. Transformation is not immediate, but we can grow together and achieve our KPI,” he said.
In tandem with implementing KPIs, LPN will be working closely with various educational stakeholders by offering courses relating to logistics in order to build up a community of logisticians with better knowledge and world-class thinking.
Institutions such as Universiti Utara Malaysia, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu and University Malaysia Kelantan are engaged to be part of these initiatives.
He said recommendations and suggestions have been put forth by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Malaysia .
They include removing the authorities’ power to set freight rates to ensure price competition, removing unnecessary criteria during licence renewal and introducing clear requirements for applicants requesting a licence for maritime transport to reduce costs and facilitate market entry.
“With various initiatives in place for the years to come, it is projected that the logistics sector’s contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) will increase to 6.5 per cent by 2030 and the total workforce of logisticians to hit one million at that same year,” he added.
Source: Bernama
