00:00Malaysia in terms of when it comes to the gig economy or even ASEAN as a whole
00:15I think we have to catch up but how do we catch up if we are competing with one
00:26another overpriced you go to us to a street with many if you go to a tourist
00:32area you see many shops and every shop is throwing their price say come investors
00:39from us come to invest in Malaysia because we are the cheapest not to invest in
00:43Singapore or in Indonesia or in Vietnam and Thailand because we are the cheapest
00:47I think ASEAN as a whole have to come together not only our leaders not only
00:55political and government leader but economic corporate business leaders have
00:59to come together and make a decision should we continue to sell our region cheap
01:06so that I think that should be our direction in the future we should ask
01:11this question when it comes to deep tech when it comes to high tech because the
01:15economy is a very interesting sector because only 15 countries in the world
01:24has legislation over the gig economy over the gig workers or platform economy
01:30Malaysia I think she asked this question because she read the news in Malaysia that
01:35I'm going to table a new law on the protection of gig workers I think it is very
01:41important because as a businessman I have a lot of business friends and they are all very nice businessmen very good businessmen
01:50so they protect their workers but they are some businessmen who come and tell me can you not have legislation that makes it difficult for us or increase our cost of doing business because you are putting a lot of protection for workers
02:08post COVID all of us must realize that one of your premium assets when it comes to doing business is your human capital if you do not protect your workers some people ask me about the migration of talents especially in this region especially with our friends from Singapore
02:32I said how do you prevent Malaysian workers from working in Singapore I said do you really want to block Malaysian workers to go to Singapore no because this is a free movement region we want to share resources but of course we want to retain some of our talents here how do you retain your talents in your country number one because government policies have to change
03:02opportunities you have to make sure you have to make sure you have to make sure you have to make sure the pay is high but number two it is not only government responsibility the business leaders have also to bear some responsibility to bear some roles because it is not only government competing with government countries competing with countries but you are also competing with your counterpart if you don't pay well
03:32you will not have talents you will not have talents to help you so therefore it is very important for the business community for leaders for ASEAN business community to think about the future of human capital to think about our talents not just in terms of improving their productivity that is very important but also in terms of how do you ensure these workers are protected so that you can retain the best talent within your company or within your country or within this region
04:02So therefore this month we are going to table the Malaysian Geek Workers Bill this is the first law first Geek Worker Law to be table here in Malaysia so if we are successful in doing this in the month of August we will be the 16th or the 17th country in the world that has a legislation on Geek Worker but the government of Malaysia has always been very rational
04:32when it comes to balancing when it comes to balancing between development because we want to make sure our digital economy our key economy grows and the protection of workers so you know when we created this new law for example we have engaged over 4,000 people in parties from employers to workers union to academicians to NGO to ensure that the law that we create
05:02we will not we will be sufficient to provide protection for workers but at the same time we will not impose unnecessary burden to businesses so that is perhaps to answer Gene's question
05:17Thank you
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