Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan

At Your Serviceindustries. In the distant past, the Malacca Sultanate and its empire was a centreof free trade, and “the natives were not poor then, with each household having aship (boat perhaps) each”.In the more recent past, the Maharaja of Johor and Malay chiefs in Perak importedforeign labour to develop some industries in the states. In recent times, wehave benefitted from a liberal environment in terms of enhanced employmentopportunities provided by the electrical and electronics industries, which came herein search of cheap locations. We took advantage of the capital inflows to design anindustrial policy that reduced unemployment, a concern in the 1970s.In the mid-80s (1986 to be exact) the then Prime Minister Datuk Seri (now Tun)Dr Mahathir Mohamad announced in New York a liberalisation policy of themanufacturing sector that spearheaded an economic recovery that lasted till 1997with an annual growth of about 8%. Malaysia became a labour-shortage economythen.Thus, liberalisation is not new in ourhistory. It is part of our economic andsocial governance as well as our nationalphilosophy. To say that we were not exposedto competition and liberalisation is to denyour economic history.What is important, as we move forward, is toensure the content of our liberal policy mustbe meaningful and suitable to our currenteconomic environment. On this point, it isup to us to organise and take advantage ofthe many opportunities brought about byliberalisation.42