KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 22 — Malaysian construction firms need to re-establish their foothold in Asia and other emerging markets through improvements in quality and productivity by leveraging on technology.

Deputy Works Minister, Datuk Rosnah Abdul Rashid Shirlin, said industry players needed to stay on top of emerging trends and new developments as they were potential agents of change in the value chain of design, engineering and construction. 

“Our challenge is to constantly maintain our relevance in terms of capability and capacity.

“The task in front of us is to improve in terms of quality and productivity.

Only then, we can achieve business viability and sustainability,” she said.

Rosnah said this in her opening address at the International Building Information Modelling Day 2014 today.

At the turn of the century, she said, Malaysian construction firms started to establish themselves in South-East Asia, Middle East, India and China.

She said Malaysian construction firms had reached its peak in their regional participation between five and six years ago.

Local firms undertook 558 projects in 18 countries worth a combined RM10.2 billion in 2006 and 69 projects in 2007 in 20 nations amounting RM19.6 billion in 2007, she said.

“Since then, both the number and total projects value had taken a dip.

“I must stress here that this downswing was due to other factors unrelated to our capabilities in construction, such as the availability of projects locally,” said Rosnah. — Bernama