For Perikatan’s technocrats, Covid-19 an opening to reset Malaysia’s economy
(MMO) – For Putrajaya’s technocrats, the Covid-19 crisis provides an opening for industries to reshape a domestic economy highly reliant on manual labour into that driven by digital innovation and automation.
Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed is among those who hold such views.
Speaking during a webinar organised by free market think tank, Ideas, the minister in the Prime Minister’s Department suggested the government sees the pandemic as a chance to scrutinise legacies of past policies, discard them and move forward.
The unprecedented fallout that has followed the outbreak, to him, could be that nudge needed to force businesses to adopt technology, a policy past administrations have long pushed for but been unsuccessful at, for the most part due to shortage of skills and talent.
But all that could change with digital technology now becoming more accessible and user-friendly. And as the crisis caused by Covid-19 unfolds, policymakers believe traditional businesses, the country’s economic backbone, are left with little choice but to modernise.
“We have been given the fundamental chance to relook at how we have been doing things in the past,” he told the teleconference.
