KUCHING: A growing demand for logistics services is evident of the positive future of the industry.
Assistant Minister of Transportation Datuk Dr Jerip Susil urged stakeholders to enhance their services to meet demands of the industry.
According to Dr Jerip said the logistics industry in Malaysia has evolved in recent years with the rise of e-commerce and interest in emerging areas, such as cold chain logistics, last mile delivery services and others.
“To enable the logistics sector to handle greater volumes of freight, to speed up the time taken to deliver goods across the supply chains and to lower the cost of this delivery, several improvements need to be made,” he pointed out at the Sarawak Forwarding Agencies Association (SFAA) 40th anniversary gala dinner here yesterday night.
“There is a need for continuous investment into infrastructure such as port upgrades and expansion, road networks and advance information technology (IT) systems,” he said.
Dr Jerip added that the logistics sector impacted all sectors of the economy, thus strategic and proactive measures to strengthen the industry were expected to result in significant spin-off for the country in the form of increased business investment, higher employment rate, reduction in the cost of doing business, increased labour productivity in the transportation and storage sub-sector.
He also pointed out there was a big potential for Malaysian companies and logistic players in the halal market, which was fast getting recognised as an important emerging sector.
He said safety and quality assurance were the reasons for the halal products being widely recognised, thus there was a big potential for Malaysian companies and logistics players to look into this new global market.
SFAA president Joseph Chung informed that the association was awarded a certificate of appreciation by the Sarawak Customs Department in February this year in recognition of its active participation and contribution to the service industry.
Also present at the dinner were the president of Singapore Logistics Association Stanley Lim and president of Asian Freight Forwarders Association (AFFA), who is also the president of Indonesian Logistics and Forwarders Association Yuki Hanafi, as well as presidents of all logistics associations of West Malaysia, Sabah and Labuan.
