Mustapa (right) shakes hands with participants attending the Showcase on Innovation for Productivity Enhancement at Dewan Perdana MITI yesterday. — Bernama photo
KUALA LUMPUR: The National Oversight Productivity Council’s (NOPC) strategic partnership platforms involving a total allocation of RM196.8 million since 2015 has benefitted 1,057 small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Minister of International Trade and Industry, Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed said the four platforms implemented by the NOPC are the Public-Private Research Network (PPRN), SIRIM-Fraunhofer Programme, Steinbeis Malaysia Foundation and PlaTCOM Ventures which provides SMEs with assistance from research to commercialisation.
“Success stories under these four strategic partnership platforms are testament that Malaysian companies are willing and able to transform themselves and become more productive and competitive,” he said in his keynote address at the Showcase on Innovation for Productivity Enhancement yesterday.
Also present was the Second Minister of International Trade and Industry, Datuk Seri Ong Ka Chuan.
Mustapa said as productivity is crucial for Malaysia to achieve sustainable growth in the next phase of economic development, the collective effort of all stakeholders is needed to succeed in transforming the country’s industries to achieve such growth.
“This same spirit of innovation and transformation must live, breathe and permeate throughout all segments and sectors of our economy,” he added.
At a briefing earlier, the Malaysia Productivity Council (MPC) Deputy Director General Ab Rahim Yusoff said the PPRN is an initiative aimed at closing the technological knowledge gap, increase productivity and strengthen Malaysia’s economic development through innovation and commercialisation programmes.
He said the scope of projects under the initiative are product innovation which aims to improve or value add existing products of the company to the needs of the market and process innovation which implemented a new or significantly improved production process, sourcing components, warehouse, logistics and delivery method of service.
Another platform, the SIRIM-Fraunhoffer Programme is a technology audit initiative with the objective of increasing productivity of SMEs through technology penetration and upgrading.
“The audit provides the individual companies with an understanding of their various strengths and weaknesses, as well as potential for improvement.
“It consequently helps them move forward in setting up targeted action plans that can help enhance their productivity and technology management capabilities to ultimately move up the value chain,” Ab Rahim said.
He also said the Steinbeis Malaysia Foundation, on the other hand, aims to connect academia to industry and promote effective and efficient cooperation in knowledge and technology transfers.
“It provides an innovative platform for collaboration for business solutions and focuses on development of end products,” he added..
Meanwhile, he said PlaTCOM Ventures is a national technology commercialisation platform.
He said it provided end-to-end facilitation services from concept to commercialisation of innovations, including access to funding, infrastructure, testing, validation, regulatory certification, market intelligence, technical expertise and commercialisation advisory.
Established in 2015, the NOPC’s role is to oversee the impact on productivity performance of the intervention programmes implemented by the four strategic Innovation platforms.
The council involves five ministries and 14 government agencies and reports directly to the National SME Development Council. — Bernama