PUTRAJAYA, March 22 — Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli said his ministry will be focusing on energy transition, expediting the digital economy, and addressing the skills gap in the job market in the second quarter of the year.

“In the next two to three months, we will focus on energy transition by accelerating the process of the current energy transition roadmap and bringing the country’s economic narrative to the right track.

“This is similar to the reason why we launched the People Income Initiative (IPR) so that the national economy narrative is focused on important things such as economic structure,” said Rafizi during his ministry's monthly town hall session today.

He said now his ministry will be expediting Malaysia’s digital economy, which includes plans to work with the Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Technology (Mosti).

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He added that the collaboration aims to promote innovation at the grassroots levels of society.

“Other than executing the policies that we have now, we also have to run in parallel with our most important stakeholders, which is the people, from a very early stage.

"Because I noticed that sometimes we emphasised policies and neglected the people from the grassroots level even though we have strategic communication plans,” said Rafizi.

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He added that a good understanding of innovation in different society members will help them execute economic plans better in the future.

Rafizi also said that his ministry will also strengthen the collaboration between industry players and employees to address the skills gap in our current job market.

“We have a lot of job opportunities, but there’s a big gap between what is needed by the market and what is offered by the workers.

“We have a special team that focuses on upskilling and hopefully we will be able to meet the needs of a targeted group with the job opportunity that is available in the industry when it’s launched,” he said.

He added that addressing the skills gap in the job industry will also help with fixing our national economic structure.