BY: CHRISTOPHER FERNANDEZ

In a timely move, the Malaysian government has announced a national policy on the Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR4.0) which aims to steer socio-economic transformation through the use of technology that is also set to revolutionize businesses.

The policy aims to increase the country’s readiness in making use of IR4.0 and transforming Malaysia into a high income nation through its widespread use and its support of other development policies such as the Shared Prosperity Vision 2030 (SPV 2030).

Malaysia has embarked on a journey towards digitalization in the forthcoming five-year periods of the  Malaysia Plans and besides the sustainable development needed more effort is needed to keep abreast with current trends to stay competitive in future.

Numerous challenges has been posed by the current Covid-19 challenge and it has changed the lives of people and this, in turn, has led to the government and businesses and workers having to adapt to digitalization and technology such as the IR4.0.

IR4.0 is estimated to increase productivity by 30 per cent across all sectors of the economy by the year 2030 which will also witness the fruition of the SPV 2030.

The rapid development of IR4.0 around the world has seen a radical paradigm shift in technology involving various sectors and industries and therefore there is a need for the nation to act in line with it.

Advanced technology is set to bring about transformation that covers a wide spectrum and is also expected to affect all segments of society. There is therefore a need to embrace IR4.0 to ensure not only that the country remained competitive but is able to cope with any changes in future.

-THE MALAYSIA VOICE

** The views expressed on this opinion is of the writer and not the publisher