Malaysia must rebrand itself, says Rafidah

PETALING JAYA: Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz believes that Malaysia should make every effort to ‘rebrand’ itself to meet the demands of an increasingly competitive and challenging global environment. 

The former Cabinet minister said that rebranding the country must be about conveying the message that Malaysia is a well-governed nation. 

The rebranding of Malaysia would also indicate that the country and its people are committed to ensuring an enabling environment for further success and development she added. 

She also said that it was necessary to do so because of strong competition in the fields of Research & Development, technology and process development, and in the supply of state of the art products and services. 

Rafidah said that Malaysia also has to compete with other countries with “newly empowered populations that have higher disposable incomes” to attract tourist as well as investors to the country. 

Rafidah however believes that Malaysia is capable of making its presence felt once again. 

“We are the real examples of Success of Unity in Diversity. 

“We still have the fundamentals... We still have the resilience to preserve... And we still have the ingredients to make our presence strongly felt again,” she said. 

Rafidah had commented on how Malaysia had in the past successfully developed itself into one of the ‘tiger economies’ of the world. 

She stressed that the country used to be a model for other countries when it came to planning Economic and Social Development and that Malaysia also used to command a strong presence globally in many different areas. 

She said that unfortunately the country has started to lose its competitive edge in some areas not only due to strong competition but also because of “our own domestic issues and aberrations.”