KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 15 (Bernama) — The small and medium enterprises (SMEs) must adopt international standards and embrace good quality culture as a prerequisite to excel in an integrated global market.
Director-general of Department of Standards Malaysia (Standards Malaysia), Datuk Fadilah Baharin, said the move would boost exports and help contribute 41 per cent to gross domestic product by 2020.
Fadilah said the main role of Standards Malaysia, an agency under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, was to provide credible standardisation and accreditation services to Malaysian companies, including quality frameworks to enhance their marketing.
“With the growing free trade market globally, standard conformance is crucial to ensure industrial efficiency, productivity and competitiveness, thus helping SMEs gain customers’ trust and loyalty,” she told Bernama.
She said SMEs in the suburb area, however, were a concern as some still lacked standards as a result of inadequate information and challenges such as limited Internet connectivity, unskilled workers and lack of communication with industry association.
This was also due to the lack of participation in their respective industrial association, she said.
“On our journey to become a developed nation by 2020, we want to see strong industrial associations in the 11th Malaysia Plan (2016-2020), where they are steady and self-regulated with less government interference,” Fadilah said.
In order to encourage more SMEs to get involved in standards compliance, a series of clinics were held via the National Standards Compliance Programme (NSCP), where SMEs would be encouraged to register with industrial association.
At present, Fadilah said, the NSCP provided technical expertise on standard compliance through capacity building to the SMEs and its collaborative partners.
The partners include SME Corp Malaysia, Malaysian Green Technology Corp, CyberSecurity Malaysia, Malaysian Investment Development Authority, Malaysia External Trade Development Corp and Majlis Amanah Rakyat.
“The reason SMEs need their associations is because the government will disseminate information and updates through these channels.
“It will then be the associations’ responsibility to present it to their respective members and manage any disputes among them without the government’s involvement,” Fadilah said.
Meanwhile, Standards Malaysia hoped that more testing laboratories would be accredited under the Laboratory Accreditation Scheme of Malaysia, to serve the SMEs in the suburban areas, including in Sabah and Sarawak.
“This is to help regulators perform standard testings, calibration and medical testings, where they would be more cost effective,” Fadilah said.
Currently there are about 560 active accredited laboratories nationwide, she said.
“We at Standards Malaysia are like the unsung heroes, where we would continue to be the ‘behind the scene’ body to ensure quality products and services are delivered to consumers,” Fadilah said.
To date, Standards Malaysia has developed 6,184 standards where 60 per cent of them are aligned with the international standards.
— BERNAMA
