Najib confident with 6 pct economic growth this year

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KUCHING: Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak yesterday expressed confidence that Malaysia will achieve its target of six per cent economic growth this year.

HIGH INCOME NATION: Najib says the government is creating more high and middle level job opportunities to ensure that the government’s objective of becoming a high income nation would be achieved by 2020.

“We will get six per cent (of economic growth) (and we are) pushing as far as possible. Every week, the economic council meets (to discuss issues)” besides creating more investment and job opportunities,” he said when meeting his facebook fans at the “Let’s Meet and Communicate” function, at the old State Legislative Assembly building, yesterday.

This is the first of Najib’s programme to meet his Facebook fans out of Putrajaya.

The first two were held in Putrajaya in March, last year and February, this year.

Najib said the government was also creating more high and middle level job opportunities to ensure that the government’s objective of becoming a high income nation would be achieved by 2020.

He also said the government’s Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) which aimed to triple Malaysia’s Gross National Income (GNI) from RM660 billion in 2009, to close to RM1.7 trillion in 2020, “is not a nightmare”.

In fact, numerous efforts were being taken to create a strong momentum for economic growth in the country, he said.

For Sarawak and Sabah, he said the bulk of allocations under the six National Key Result Areas (NKRAs) had been allocated for various infrastructure projects in both states especially in ensuring road, water and electricity development projects reached the poor and rural areas.

Najib said the federal government was endeavouring to achieve balanced development between Sarawak and the peninsula, in fact for the past two years various rural development projects in the state had been progressing smoothly.

However, he said development in this biggest state in the country would take some time because of its size compared with the other states in the peninsula.

For example, the construction of a 60km road in Sarawak only covered a small area in the state, but if it were to be carried out in Perlis, it would cover the whole state, he said.

Answering a question from the floor on the government’s move to bring back highly skilled Malaysian professionals from abroad, he said the government was not only engaging Malaysians abroad but aslo ensuring the local highly skilled professionals were being retained in the country.

He said the government was not only creating more job opportunities but also ensuring that the job offers were attractive, but this must be reciprocated with an increase in productivity by the workers.

Najib said high income job opportunities and attractive wages are the key in retaining skilled and talent workers, and the basis of ensuring ETP is achieveable. — Bernama