Thursday, May 10, 2012

MTEM grooming oil and gas champions

Source From (Business Times): http://www.btimes.com.my/Current_News/BTIMES/articles/MTAM/Article/

Published: on 10 May 2012
By Sharen Kaur

MAJLIS Tindakan Ekonomi Melayu Bersatu (MTEM) is working with Pemandu and Petroleum Nasional Bhd to create Malay/Bumiputera oil and gas champions for the industry.

"We have identified a few players and are looking to groom them," said MTEM president, Rizal Faris Mohideen.

Under MTEM, there are 16 economic clusters and 12 mirror the National Key Economic Areas.

MTEM aims to increase Malay/Bumiputera entrepreneurs in all sectors and help the smaller players move up a notch and compete globally.

There are over one million Malay/Bumiputera entrepreneurs and 93 per cent earn revenue of less than RM250,000 per year. A majority are retailers.

The rest earn more than RM500,000 in revenue and mainly are small- and medium-sized industries.

"There are a lot of challenges like global trade agreement and liberalisation. To stay afloat, they need to compete globally. We are here to help them," said Rizal, who is also Project Gemilang organising committee chairman.

"We want to ensure the entrepreneurs have access to money, markets and mentors," Rizal said yesterday at a press conference.

Project Gemilang is to raise awareness among entrepreneurs on the ongoing economic movement spearheaded by MTEM for the Malay community.

It will highlight the importance of the Malay business sector towards supporting Malaysia's aspiration of becoming a high-income economy by 2020.

The carnival will be launched on May 13 in Tasik Gelugor, Penang, and held in eight states throughout the year.

MTAM's key partner in the carnival is Media Prima Bhd, the country's largest integrated media group.

Media Prima will promote the carnival via television ad-vertisement, the new media and radio.

"We don't want to sit in a glass case in Kuala Lumpur and talk about the Malay economy but get our hands dirty and move nationwide. We are bullish that we will identify a few thousand entrepreneurs at the carnival," Rizal said.

Project Gemilang creative director Dr Shahridan Faiez said budding entrepreneurs don't have to be in a cosmopolitan business centre to set up shop.

"The idea is to have a business that is scalable. US-based Walmart started in Akron, Ohio. Today they are the world's largest retailer and a Fortune 500 company. This is a good success story," he said.

MTEM, launched in October last year, is an umbrella organisation for Malay economic non-government organisations (NGOs). It has close to 500,000 registered members.

It is aimed at uniting Malay economic NGOs and effectively promote a sustainable economic development for the Malay community and the nation.

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