Ministries, agencies urged to continue their efforts in placing GRP as an important agenda

A screenshot of Jaul speaking at the GRP seminar opening on Zoom.

KUCHING (Nov 23): Ministries and agencies are urged to continue their efforts in placing Good Regulatory Practice (GRP) as an important agenda to facilitate a conducive regulatory environment that promotes greater productivity and economic growth.

In making the call, State Secretary Datuk Amar Jaul Samion said he strongly believed the development and implementation of GRP could be intensified through strengthening the effort and cooperation among ministries, state departments and agencies to ensure policy cohesion at all levels.

“I am delighted to inform that Sarawak is the leading state in Malaysia that took the challenge to implement the GRP and Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) and successfully issued the circular on the State Policy Development and Implementation of Regulations (SPDIR) on May 16, 2019.

“SPDIR aims at promoting a regulatory process that is effective, efficient and accountable as well as to achieve greater regulatory and policy coherence across ministries and agencies,” he said in his opening speech at the Seminar on Good Regulatory Practice (GRP) Sarawak 2020, organised by Malaysia Productivity Corporation (MPC) via Zoom video conferencing platform Monday.

Jaul said from the data gathered by MPC, 13 states that had undertaken GRP, 1,386 business licenses had been reviewed with 14 licenses proposed to be abolished and 1,372 licenses are being streamlined and composite.

“As of today, the state of Sarawak had conducted 11 pilot projects under the GRP initiatives and six projects had undertaken the RIA process,” he said.

Jaul noted that raising productivity remained a fundamental challenge for the country and it should be a continuous effort for ensuring sustainable economic growth.

These included investing in conducive ecosystem infrastructure, improving the quality of education and training, enhancing innovation and adopting technology as well as unlocking the potential of digital economy as a driver for economic growth of the future, he added.

Earlier, MPC director-general Datuk Abdul Latif Abu Seman in his welcoming remarks said MPC together with several other ministries and agencies had been continuously reviewing new and existing regulations in improving the quality of the regulations through various GRP initiatives.

He added that these included the RIA, Deregulation, Dealing with Construction Permit (DCP) and Modernising Business Licenses (MBL).

“In addition, there are the Guillotine approach and Non-Tariff Measures (NTMs) programmes which analyses the domestic trade barriers and licenses and permits requirements to improve efficiency.

“For Sarawak, the first NTM programme will kick off on Nov 30 which will involve nine ministries and 14 departments,” he said.

On the seminar, Abdul Latif expressed his confidence that the sharing by the invited speakers from Forest Department Sarawak and Bintulu Development Authority would provide participants with the necessary pointers to help strengthen knowledge on integrity, inclusiveness, trust and transparency, as emphasised by the government.

“I hope this event will be a mutually beneficial exercise in strengthening and further improving our efforts to raise the quality of regulatory framework,” he said.

The objective of the seminar was to highlight insights on strategies to strengthen institutional governance in enhancing productivity through GRP.

The participants comprised government officials, members of associations and Chambers of Commerce, and representatives from local universities.

Also present were MPC board member Datuk Abang Abdul Karim Tun Openg, MPC Sarawak director Sarimah Misman, and State Service Modernisation Unit director Michael Ronnie Langgong.

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