Tan Sri Azman Hashim
President MASSA

Greetings and Best Wishes for 2020!

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) released its latest report indicating that Malaysia’s economic growth will remain positive in the fourth quarter of 2019 (4Q19), and the expansion will be sustained into 2020, anchored by the country’s private sector spending and the diversified nature of its economy and exports.  BNM is confident that Malaysia’s GDP growth will be within 4.3% – 4.8% for 2019.

Moving forward, external uncertainties remain, given the volatility in the financial markets,  UK – Brexit and the resulting contagion effects arising from the US-China Trade Wars against a backdrop of weakening global trade growth.

At MASSA, much emphasis over the past year had been given to activities to enable members to be acquainted with the digital economy.  The age of digitalisation is fast sweeping the world into a brand new order whereby economic activities resulting from billions of everyday online connections among people, customers, businesses, devices, data and processes will make the world a smaller place and will redefine the world’s industries, jobs, new skills and the emergence of data-driven technologies to drive old businesses in a new way and the birth of new businesses.

While our Government is doing its part to build the necessary digital ecosystem and to encourage innovation, we in the  private sector can play our roles to improve our preparedness to embrace new technologies in our business processes, refocus our HR talents to higher value tasks and seize new business opportunities as they come onstream in the digital economy.

Towards this end, MASSA will endeavour to bring to members’ attention these areas, sectors and activities and we encourage your active participation to get acquainted, build your knowledge and seize the emerging opportunities.

I appreciate the continuing support and cooperation of all members, especially my fellow Executive Committee members with your regular attendance at MASSA events and at our EXCO meetings together with your generous contributions.

I also wish to thank all our supporters who have contributed valuable and insightful articles to our MASSA newsletters.

I wish you all a happy, healthy and successful new year 2020.

Tan Sri Azman Hashim
President