Selangor rallies other States to produce regional aerospace powerhouse
04 Sep 2020
Selangor rallies fellow States to produce a regional aerospace powerhouse and concentrate on international competition rather than interstate competition.
Selangor Investment, Industry, Commerce and Small and Medium Enterprises senior executive councillor Datuk Teng Chang Khim said in this regard, Invest Selangor was ready to help other States.
“Selangor has 65 percent of Malaysia’s aerospace industry. We can offer a lot of help because the aerospace industry has four tiers. In Malaysia, most of tier 1, the highest tier, is in Selangor and we need also tier 2 and 3 to actually create an ecosystem,” he told Bernama today.
He was a guest speaker on Bernama TV — The Nation, to dwell on the topic: ‘Building Selangor as the region’s investment hub and sustaining investors’ confidence amidst the current pandemic’.
“From what I see, the other states are trying to compete with Selangor for tier 1. I deem it as an unnecessary competition in terms of skilled workers. All the skilled workers prefer to come to Selangor and most of them are here (in Selangor).
“Even if they manage to get tier 1 to the state, they might not be able to get the workers as we already have the ecosystem here. For certain tier 2 or 3, and even tier 4, we can actually share with them (other States), so that whole Malaysia can become an ecosystem, rather than (just) Selangor,” he said.
Teng said tier 1 or 2 companies should be allowed to come to Selangor, and other states may focus on tier 3 and tier 4, so the whole ecosystem could be spread out rather than concentrate in Selangor.
“If other States obtain tier 1, they might be isolated and not be actually good for long term development of the industry in the particular States,” he said, adding that data centre was also another example of interstate competition.
“Since Selangor has the (data centre) strength with Cyberjaya, thus it is suitable as a centre, so why (is there) need (for) other States (to) compete in this?” he said.
He said other States could look at where the competitive advantages are, the benefits for collaboration, and focus external competition outside Malaysia.
On Selangor being the regional economic hub, he said the State has the facilities and expertise.
“What we need to do now is to benchmark, and the best benchmark around the region would be Singapore, and see how they have become so efficient, from a small country that has developed themselves,” he said.
He said Malaysia is not lacking in land and population but is behind Singapore because of lack of efficiency.
“We need to address the issue by putting more emphasis on digitalisation,” he said.
Source: Bernama Posted on : 04 September 2020
