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| Sunday, 29 May 2005 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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Painstaking work, the criterion to develop countries - Dr Mahathir Mohamad by Hiran H. Senewiratne Countries could be developed only with painstaking work of the people, government, professionals, industrialists and employers not through magic or miracles, said former Prime Minister of Malaysia Dr. Mahathir Mohamad. "To achieve economic growth and prosperity countries should have the necessary infrastructure in place with pragmatic economic approaches along with political stability," Dr. Mohamad told the CIMA Global Leaders Summit 2005 at the BMICH on Thursday. He said that every country should have a vision to achieve economic prosperity and as far as Malaysia is concerned it adopted unique strategies that fit into them. "We should have targets or objectives with a proper economic framework. The idea being to know where we stand ,"he said. We should know the history of the country, as it will help to avoid past mistakes to achieve targets and objectives within a short period of time," Dr. Mohamad said. He said that Malaysia which was initially an agricultural country switched to industrialisation to generate more employment opportunities and this was one of the strategies for its success. We realised that agricultural economies could not generate unlimited employment opportunities for the people, he said Malaysia is a country with multi ethnic, religious and cultural differences and violence and conflicts were a common phenomenon in such a situation. "We realised that no economic growth would take place when political instability and conflicts prevail, which automatically sinks the growth of the country,"he said. Dr Mohamad said that sharing political power and equal economic benefits among all ethnic groups would help the country to establish peace and harmony. He also said that the government cannot do business as it should act as an agent for economic development. If the government gets into business others will not compete with the government and ultimately it will become a government monopoly. The government cannot do business as it is not efficient and also lacks professionalism to improve the business. The former Prime Minister said that privatisation is not selling public properties to foreign companies to settle foreign debts, but in Malaysia privatisation was transferring the government sector to the private sector to make business more viable and efficient. "At times privatisation could fail not due to mis-management but due to the economic crisis,"he said. He said that professionals in government service play a key role in Malaysia and the government brings professional business managers to run business. He said that professional business managers are not born but are trained in business institutions to sharpen their entrepreneur skills. Dr. Mohamad said they have developed proper work ethics and management styles and that they took the cue from European countries to maintain industrial peace, In Malaysia we believe in mutual interest and arbitration between the employee and employer that will help to develop industries and ultimately benefit the country in the long run, he said. Dr. Mohamad before attending the Global Leaders summit participated in the unveiling of a new corporate identity of Dialog GSM, where the company changed its original name MTN Network (Pvt) Ltd., to Dialog Telekom Ltd., to encompass the full breath of the company's far-reaching telecommunication services. The highlight of the event was when Dialog Telekom CEO Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya invited Dr. Mohamad and guest of honour Finance Minister Dr. Sarath Amunugama to witness the Chairman of Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) Dr. Muhammad Radzi Mansor handing over the Initial Listing application to the Chairman of the Colombo Stock Exchange Eraj Wijesinghe. |
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