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Collaboration to promote green businesses

[ 01-01-1970 ]
Collaboration to promote green businesses

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) countries can work with Malaysia's small and medium scale companies (SMEs) to jump start "green" businesses.

Agil Faisal Ahmad Fadzil, who is group managing director of SLG Group and also a board member of SME Corp Malaysia, said as far as "green" was concerned, it was still a novelty and in its infancy stage in Malaysia.The government is committed under the green master plan to promote green businesses.

Currently, there is a low take-up for grants or soft loans under the US$500,000 (RM1.51 million) fund as companies need to have a certificate, which is not the case in countries like the US. "There, they can run the business as clean as possible as long as it is in conformity with standards," said Agil Faisal in an interview with Business Times in Montana, the US, recently.

In his address during the Apec Ministerial lunch with the private sector, Agil Faisal related the Malaysian SME experience, where the use of the 4Cs (connect, communicate, consult and collaborate) had given rise to home-grown SMEs. They include Nelson's Secret Recipe and the Holiday Villa Chain Hotel which are doing well, regionally and internationally.

Highlighting SLG's's experience, he remarked that it has charted into many different territories in the past five years such as exporting exotic agricultural products to China and setting up an ICT (information and communications technology) and advisory shared services and outsourcing company in Vietnam and Suzhou.

SLG also exports renewable industrial fuel to India and Thailand, and works closely with a technology partner in South Korea. Agil Faisal said the competitiveness raised by the Internet and advancement of technology led to the emergence of many international SMEs as well as increased challenges."For SMEs to succeed, they must be able to focus on and execute their core tasks without being hampered by issues, such as bureaucracy, financing and logistics," noted Agil Faisal.

Market access has always been restricted, he added. Instead of being proactively looking for new business opportunities in overseas markets, SMEs, in particular those in Malaysia and Apec's emerging economies, normally have to rely on a passive mechanism, which often means waiting for buyers to approach.

Agil Faisal said competition is already at the doorstep with the internationalization of SMEs, ongoing free trade agreements and also the Trans-Pacific Partnership.At present, SMEs account for about 90 per cent of all global business establishments and employ nearly 60 per cent of the global workforce.

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