Malaysia will establish a task force comprising representatives from the public and private sector, to improve its ranking in the World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY), said the ministry of international trade and industry (Miti).

Malaysia is ranked at 24th position in the latest WCY 2017, compiled by The Institute for Management Development (IMD), World Competitiveness Centre based in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Despite the decline from 19th position last year, it remains in the top 25 most competitive nations among 63 economies including Hong Kong, Switzerland, Singapore, the US and Netherlands.

Minister Mustapa Mohamed said besides the task force, the ministry had also begun undertaking the necessary steps to improve Malaysia's performance through the Malaysia Productivity Blueprint's (MPB) five thrusts.

The five key thrusts are building high-skilled workforce for the future, driving digitalisation and innovation to companies across sectors, making industry accountable for productivity, forging a robust ecosystem to ensure effective implementation of regulations and securing a strong implementation mechanism through effective governance.

"The IMD World Competitiveness Centre has also published a separate Digital Competitiveness Ranking for the first time.

"Malaysia ranks at 24th position in this ranking where the top five positions were occupied by Singapore, Sweden, the US, Finland and Denmark.

"This separate ranking measures countries' ability to adopt and explore digital technologies leading to transformation in government practices, business models and society in general," he said in a statement today.

Mustapa noted that in the digital competitiveness area, Malaysia remained committed to driving digitalisation and innovation through appropriate technological infrastructure, e-commerce and technology adoption across the economic sectors.

The Digital Free Trade Zone, once completed, would position Malaysia among the leading countries in the global e-commerce market and the country needed to sustain this momentum and forge ahead, he said.

Looking ahead, he urged all parties to work harder in improving Malaysia's position in the WCY next year, despite having a good momentum so far this year.

More efforts should be targeted and intensified to improve investment environment and promoting policies that would increase trade, reduce regulatory burden and strengthen the country's technological capabilities, he said.

"We have scored a number of successes through the Economic Transformation Programme and Government Transformation Programme implemented since 2010.

"For example, the setting up of the Rural and Urban Transformation Centres offering integrated initiatives in a number of cities across the country speak volumes of our commitment to deliver more efficient government services," he said.

Despite the external and domestic headwinds, Malaysia retained its position among the top 25 competitive nations, coming in 24th out of 63 countries in the World Competitiveness Yearbook 2017 (WCY) published by the Swiss-based Institute for Management Development (IMD).

Even though Malaysia dropped from 19th spot out of 61 countries last year, it improved its score slightly to 83.53 from 83.05 last year.

Herewith, the IMD's WCY top 25 rankings report reproduced by the Malaysia Productivity Corporation (MPC):

According to the report released today, Malaysia's competitiveness was adversely affected by the dynamic and challenging external environment in 2016 such as the uncertainties surrounding the monetary policy path of the US, sharp movements in global commodity prices and the uncertain trajectory of global growth.

"Nevertheless, Malaysia's continued economic and financial resilience have provided the support to withstand external shocks and prevents Malaysia from experiencing a more significant decline in performance," the report revealed.

MPC director-general Mohd Razali Hussain said Malaysia slipped one notch to second position among 32 countries with gross domestic product (GDP) per capita less than US$20,000.

He said Malaysia was overtaken by China which recorded a good progress in its economy.

In the category of population greater than 20 million, he said Malaysia was ranked eight among 20 countries (2016: seventh).

In the Asia-Pacific region, Malaysia was placed sixth in 2017 compared with seventh last year, ahead of Japan which finished eight, Thailand (ninth), and South Korea (10th); and remained second in the Asean region after Singapore.

The WCY provides the most objective assessment of countries' competitiveness based on four factors, namely economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency and infrastructure, where in the 2017 report, Malaysia was ranked 13th, 25th, 19th, and 32nd , respectively from 11th, 18th, 14th, and 31st , respectively in the previous year.

Going forward, Razali said the government is determined to continue to accelerate its implementation initiatives to sustain the future of Malaysia's competitiveness.

He said to keep up the momentum towards enhancing Malaysia's performance, intensive process of engagement with various government agencies through cluster working group and industry players is crucial.

"Things that are happening around us at the moment in terms of improvement in external environment and the first quarter (GDP) results of 5.6 percent, provide a good momentum and confidence towards business community.

"We are confident that in the next report that we are going to see improvement in terms of our ranking," he said.

Razali said Malaysia's competitiveness depended on the medium to long-term productivity and growth prospects of the national economy, whilst benchmarking and best practices from other countries were crucial for the nation to identify gaps and take actions to improve its performance.

- Bernama