KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 9 — The government must lead the way in digitalising the economy rather than the private sector because of the economies of scale required for the initiative, Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli said today.
According to Rafizi, this is because there are far more Malaysians who use government services compared to those who do so with the private sector.
“To digitalise the community and enhance our economy, the government must be quick in not only for example providing services through websites but the entirety of the government’s services must be digital,” he told reporters at the launch of the World Bank’s Malaysia Economic Monitor February 2023 Edition “Expanding Malaysia's Digital Frontier”.
He added that the initiatives under the Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint, which aims to complete the digitalisation of the country by 2030, will be hastened.
The blueprint was launched in February last year to achieve 100 per cent internet access in every Malaysian household.
“The difference between the current administration and previous ones is that we truly understand that as a country of 30 million population, many of the initiatives that focus on digitalisation must begin at the public level,” Rafizi said.
He added that the government is working on the measures and hopes improvements will be made according to plan.
He said what the government is doing for digitalisation will also help the private sector, as the increasing demands for data scientists and IT specialists will also increase supply of such skills in the workforce.
He said the government’s top priority now is to ensure the sharing of data to the public sector is speeded up.
“This is because we are currently transitioning towards targeted subsidies.
“But in order to do this effectively and fairly, we must ensure that we know how many people are in a household and their incomes so that we know how much the household income is,” he explained.
With a central database, the government will be able to carry out targeted subsidies and to provide direct aid to households that really need it, he added.
“People like myself are the ones who don’t need oil subsidies,” Rafizi said, jokingly.
In its “Malaysia Economic Monitor February 2023” report released recently, the World Bank recommended Malaysia phase out blanket and broad-based subsidies and instead implement a targeted subsidy framework to better support its vulnerable citizens and rebuild its fiscal buffers.
Using fuel subsidies as an example, the World Bank said that targeted cash transfers to lower-income households could be introduced to replace the blanket fuel subsidies that are currently practiced.
