KUCHING: The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (Miti) aims to accelerate awareness of Industry4WRD Readiness Assessment (RA) programme to gain more participation by the state’s small-medium enterprises (SMEs).
Its state regional office director, Griffith Jones Goba, said the outreach programme served as an effective government-industry communication channel that has been specially set up to prepare and disseminate useful information, facilities and solutions on Industry 4.0.
According to him, the programme also focuses on leading the future workforce and assisting SMEs to understand and initiate the changes needed for their business operations to become more competitive.
He pointed out that as Miti was willing to face challenges to get the SMEs to play more active roles in the Industry 4.0 revolution, the industry players here should sign up for the programme.
“Five-hundred SMEs will be selected for free assessment by trained assessors (industry experts) to assist players to understand their readiness for Industry 4.0 and make recommendations on where to start their respective transformation.
“They will be assessed to identify areas of improvement in terms of people, process and technology. They will receive comprehensive readiness report and they will be entitled to apply for financial incentives,” he told New Sarawak Tribune when met yesterday.
Griffith also pointed out that the programme also emphasised on upgrading protocol of Asean China Free Trade Agreement and implementation of Asean Hong Kong, China Free Trade Agreement to a total of 80 participants.
He said that Preferential Certificate of Origin (PCO) is a document to prove the origin status of a product.
“It also acts as an import document for the customs of importing countries in order for products to enjoy tariff concessions. It is an important international trade document attesting that goods in a particular export shipment are wholly obtained, produced entirely, manufactured or processed in a particular country,” he said.
He added that the participants, a majority of whom are exporters, were provided with further understanding of PCO which allows buyers to pay lower customs duties or total removal of customs duties when exporting goods under a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) or Scheme of Preferences.
He also noted the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with 14 countries which allow companies to export using any of the FTAs relevant to suit their business arrangements.
