By Charles Santiago, Klang MP

The Malaysian government has got it all wrong again. It cannot always be about short cuts. And it’s certainly not acceptable when the government does shoddy work just to push ahead with its agenda.

The federal government needs to undertake a national Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) business impact preparedness assessment that includes all small and medium industries (SME) in the country to effectively assess Malaysia’s level of readiness to participate in the negotiations.

At present, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) plans to focus only on Bumiputera entrepreneurship.

Prime Minister Najib Razak indicated last week that the TPPA trade negotiations will be concluded early next year and Malaysia’s remaining concerns at the negotiations were the Bumiputera agenda and government owned companies.

It is important for the government to focus on the 37.4 percent Bumiputera business in a TPPA environment given that it is central to the nation’s development agenda. But MITI’s study should not discriminate the larger non-Bumiputera SMIs who make-up about 62.6 percent of all SMIs in the country.

The Bumiputera SMI study should, therefore, be an important part of a larger study encompassing the level of SMI preparedness in the country.

Why should the MITI study encompass all small and medium businesses? One may ask.

It makes economic sense given that these enterprises represent at least 99% of total business involving 645,136 establishments in the country. And they employ 59 per cent of all workers employed in largely labour-intensive businesses and constitute about 90 percent of the total labor force in the manufacturing sector alone.

Clearly, SMIs are an important source of growth for the nation and generate employment opportunities and income for a significant population of the labor force.

Therefore, what’s needed is a national TPPA impact assessment that could throw light on advantages and disadvantages of joining the TPPA including mitigation plans if confronted with a loss of market share, business, jobs and income.

Furthermore, a study involving the preparedness of SMIs to compete in a challenging TPPA environment will help local SMIs to equip themselves to face stiff competition among the other SMIs of the eleven countries, which are negotiating the TPPA. This is important given the contribution of Malaysian SMIs in the country’s Transformation Plan, which envisions transforming Malaysia from a middle-income to a high-income economy.

In my budget 2015 speech, I had asked MITI to undertake a national SMI study, which includes the Malay, Chinese, Indian, Bumiputera and businesses in Sabah and Sarawak. My request was met with a deafening silence.

MITI has to recognize that competition is a warfare and it does not favor one group against another. What is important is whether we, as a nation, are prepared to face a challenging and highly competitive TPPA environment.

Therefore, it’s only prudent the government rethinks its decision on this matter in the best interest of the country.