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Business Environment
The Malaysia Plan
The Ninth Malaysia
Plan
The Ninth Malaysia Plan, which covers the period 2006 to
2010 (rMK-9), represents the second phase in the implementation of the Third
Outline Perspective Plan for the period 2001 to 2010, which will integrate
strategies, programmes and projects towards achieving Vision 2020. The Plan
will place an emphasis on maintaining the macroeconomic stability of the
country to consolidate the economy on a sustainable growth path to achieve
distributional goals and improve Malaysians’ quality of life. In order to
enhance Malaysia’s competitive edge, special emphasis will be given to
increasing productivity and efficiency through human resource development,
encouraging research and development activities and utilizing the latest
technologies, particularly information and communications technology. The
Malaysian economy is projected to grow by an average of 6 per cent annually
during the Plan and 6.5 per cent annually during the period of 2011 to 2020.
Under the Malaysia Budget 2010, Malaysia’s economy is expected to grow by 2–3
per cent in 2010.
The Tenth Malaysia
Plan
The Tenth Malaysia Plan (rMK-10) was unveiled in Parliament
on 10 June 2010 by Prime Minister Dato’ Seri najib Tun razak to spearhead the
Malaysian economy over a period of five years beginning 2011 to achieve
developed-nation status by 2020. It is one of the four pillars of the national
transformation program (the others being 1Malaysia, the Government
Transformation Program (GTP), and the Economic Transformation Program (ETP)).
Under the rMK-10, the Malaysian economy is envisaged to grow
at an average clip of 6.0 per cent per annum, led by the services and
manufacturing sectors, revitalizing the agricultural sector towards higher
value added as well as the adoption of information and communication
technologies, biotechnology and other relevant technologies. The key challenge
is to stimulate private sector investments to grow at 12.8 per cent or rM115
billion per annum. A business growth fund with an initial allocation of rM150
million will be set up to bridge the financing gap between the early stage of commercialization
and venture capital financing for high technology products. The rMK-10 will
focus on 12 national key economic areas to be announced later in October 2010.
Personal Data
Protection
The Personal Data Protection Act 2010 (PDPA) came into force
on 10 June 2010, making Malaysia one of the first Asean countries to introduce
such legislation. It seeks to regulate the processing of personal data in
commercial transactions.
The PDPA applies to both local and foreign individuals or
companies operating in this country, as long as personal data is being
processed in Malaysia. Personal data, under the PDPA, means any information in
respect of commercial transactions that can identify an individual, for example
name, age, MyKad details, photo, passport number, video and images captured via
closed-circuit television. The term “process” includes the act of collecting,
recording, holding, storing, carrying out operations involving alteration, use,
disclosure, correction and erasure of personal data.
Generally, the PDPA can be seen to affect the way businesses
and other organizations (i.e the data users) store the personal data of their
employees, customers or suppliers (i.e. the data subjects),
First, the data users are required to inform the data
subjects via written notice, inter alia, that their personal data will be
processed, the purpose for which their personal data is being collected and
processed, and that the data subjects have a right to request access and/or
correction of the personal data. Subsequently, the data users are required to
obtain consent from the data subjects to process the personal data, including
the transfer of personal data to a place outside Malaysia. This consent granted
by the data subjects may be withdrawn at any time via written notice to the
data users.
Upon collection of personal data from the data subjects, the
data users are responsible to protect the personal data from any loss, misuse,
modification, unauthorized or accidental access, disclosure, alteration or
destruction. The data users have a duty to also ensure that the personal data
is accurate, complete, not misleading and kept up-to-date. In the event the
purpose for processing such personal data has been fulfilled or the keeping of
such personal data is no longer necessary, the data users are obliged to take
reasonable steps to ensure that all such personal data is destroyed or
permanently deleted.
It is noteworthy that even if the data users have collected
and processed personal data before the PDPA comes into force, they are given a
grace period of 3 months from the effective date of the PDPA to comply with the
provisions thereof.
Competition and
Regulation
The Competition Act 2010, which will come into force on 1
January 2012, marks the first piece of legislation in this country to address
competition in generic terms, apart from specific legislation with some
provisions on antitrust governing the energy and multimedia communications
sectors. It promotes a competitive environment and provides foreign investors
with a stronger confidence in the country’s business practices.
The Competition Act applies to any commercial activities
within Malaysia. It applies equally to commercial activities outside Malaysia,
which has an effect on the competition in any market in Malaysia.
In essence, there are two major prohibitions: (a)
anti-competitive agreements; and (b) abuse of dominant positions.
Anti-competitive agreements include price fixing, import cartel, bid rigging,
territorial allocation, limiting production and market sharing; whilst the
abuse of dominant position covers predatory pricing, price discrimination,
excessive pricing and denying market access.
The Competition Act also introduces a Competition Commission
to monitor and investigate potential uncompetitive markets, and a Competition
Appeal Tribunal which allows petition of a decision by the companies.
With the enactment of the Competition Act, there is now a
promotion of efficient functioning of the markets. It benefits consumers with
lower prices and better choices made available, provides safeguard against
practices that could drive companies out of business, allows lower entry
barriers to promote entrepreneurship and growth of small and medium
enterprises, and controls international unfair competition and restrictive
business practices such as international cartels.