Pemudah, the special task force set up to facilitate business, completes five years of work on Feb 7. As the task force reviews the outcomes of five years of public and private sector partnership, it takes cognisance of the giant steps it has taken from its initial aim of  improving Malaysia’s ranking from 25th in the World Bank Doing Business Report 2007 (WB Index).

Apart from having bettered the nation’s ranking, currently at 18th in the WB Index (from 23rd in 2010) and 21st in the Global Competitiveness Report, 2011-2012 (from 26th in 2010-2011), Pemudah has also leveraged public-private sector engagement and collaboration to provide input for other relevant policy issues that impact not only the business environment but also citizenry and national development goals.

The outcomes of Pemudah have been positive and there is a case to be made for greater public-private sector collaboration. When we began working as a task force, there was understandably a perceptible degree of scepticism. The private sector had a long wish list running into hundreds of policy and regulatory changes desired in the short, medium and long terms. Our eyes were fixed on the “big picture”. The public sector was focused on the task assigned, that is, improving all the indicators that determined Malaysia’s  competitiveness ranking and maybe not much more.

The “divide”, if I can even call it that, has slowly but surely narrowed in the past five years of working together. Central to the coming together of perceptions and expectations of both the public and private sectors is the Chief Secretary to Government, Tan Sri Sidek Hassan, who recognised the inherent strength of such a grouping.

He “persuaded” the senior civil servants in the task force with his own openness to new ideas and receptiveness to proposals, including shorter timelines, automatic renewals, electronic payments, consolidated licences, negative versus positive lists and the like. When the top civil servant in the country is prepared to be open to new ideas and is serious about change, there can be little room for resistance. The change was immediate with some agencies moving ahead very quickly to bring about improvements, notably the Immigration Department and the Internal Revenue Board.

It was also a learning process for members of the private sector. We met frequently among ourselves and often with other stakeholders in the early days to discuss issues, strategies to engage the public sector, draw on the best practices of our competitors and even to coordinate the position of the private sector when such views varied or differed because of specific industry needs.

The public sector saw the potential to tap our role in bringing together the varied positions of different players in the private sector to negotiate and compromise on common positions that were good from the national point of view. We, in turn, gained greater appreciation of the intricacies of public policy determination and the need to balance the interests of all groups.

We all learnt in the last five years as partners in Pemudah to collaborate to achieve the best possible outcomes in any set of prevailing circumstances and we built on the trust. Both sides were able to engage frankly on issues once the comfort levels were enhanced and the quality of the engagement improved, not just between the two groups but also within the groups. Frank discussions took place among the government agencies in seeking solutions at meetings of the task force.

Pemudah works through a myriad of working and focus groups and many of these were led by members of the private sector, for example the focus groups on paying taxes, enforcing contracts and registering property. This was a new modus operandi that was not used in the pre-Pemudah days. As we made headway and rankings were improved, the public sector was encouraged to do more and better and the momentum of change picked up.

Commitment and ownership of initiatives by both the public and private sectors grew. We could do it better together.

We were also challenged by the public sector to look at the efficiency and quality of services we offered to the consumer in a quid pro quo situation, which subsequently led to the setting up of a focus group on private sector efficiency and accountability towards consumerism. This focus group addressed specific issues in the provision of services by the utility providers, banking and insurance, telecommunications and the like. We progressed from dealing with competitiveness issues to matters that affected not just business but also the man on the street.

At the macro level, we collaborated with the public sector to deal with the review of the Foreign Investment Committee guidelines with respect to acquisitions of interests, mergers and takeovers, treatment of listed companies and acquisition of properties aimed at strengthening Malaysia’s value proposition as an investment destination.

We continue to engage the public sector in the review of labour legislation to allow greater flexibility for employers to deal with their workers and provide views on improving the quality of labour. We supported the judiciary in the setting up of the new commercial courts, which assures resolution of cases within nine months and which have facilitated the clearing of almost all backlogged cases since. We provided input and supported the liberalisation of the service sector and ongoing negotiations on bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements in facilitating the concurrence of policymakers in cross-agency issues.

Moving forward, much more remains on the plate of the task force. Having successfully reviewed the licences and licensing process of 23 ministries/agencies and reducing the number by half, the review has since been extended to the local authorities.

A company can now be incorporated in one day, removing the need for shelf companies. The new challenge is to facilitate starting a business as quickly as possible. Registering properties, for example, took five procedures, 41 days and 2.6% of the value of the property before. Today, it takes two procedures, two days and 1.3% of the cost and the review is ongoing.

Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur has also been identified by Pemudah to be made a model local council aimed at making Kuala Lumpur one of the 20 most livable cities in 2020. A focus group meets regularly to look into the operations of DBKL and propose initiatives. Among the initiatives is one to ease traffic congestion. A total of 260 wardens were recently appointed to ensure that yellow boxes at traffic lights are clear of traffic; at pilot junctions, traffic is being allowed to turn right on red as is practised in many countries to ease traffic — a practice that will be implemented more widely in time to come.

Pemudah is a successful case in public-private sector collaboration. In recognition of the value of working in partnership with the private sector, the chief secretary to the government directed the establishment of state-level Pemudah to address state and local level issues specifically. Such a move is both timely and expedient as businesses engage frequently with local authorities in all their operations.

Public-private sector collaboration works because the customers — businesses, investors, citizens — are consulted on the quality of services delivered and provided with opportunities for feedback and proposals. Such a mechanism is particularly important because unlike other businesses, the civil service is the sole provider of such services.

When the only service provider is committed to service delivery, benchmarked against the best service standards globally, surely we are well on our way to achieve our ambition of being among the top 10 nations in global competitiveness rankings? Perhaps, we could challenge other service providers in “protected” segments of the economy to adopt the same model to improve the efficiency and value proposition of the economy to investors and consumers alike.

Tan Sri Yong Poh Kon is the co-chair of Pemudah with Chief Secretary to the Government of Malaysia Tan Sri Sidek Hassan. Yong is the current president of the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers and managing director of Royal Selangor..

This article appeared in the Forum page of The Edge Malaysia, Issue 896, Feb 6-12, 2012