2035 Vision

Just finished reading the publication. A friend graciously gave his own copy to me as apparently the books were already sold out in the book shops. This to me is a good sign that many people are interested to know what is in this 30 year plan. The book is quite transparent in sharing a number of vital statistics. I am sure there has been a lot of effort put into this, including also the never ending use of consultants and so on. So here’s my short view on the book (everyone should have a say, right?)

So what is vision? We need vision to know where we are going, to organise our journey so it points in the right direction. So the journey should analyses our weaknesses and strengths, how to execute and deliver, monitor, measure, has back up plan and has to be reasonably achievable. This is even more important as the last 5 year plan (RKN8) saw many development projects were implemented behind schedule.

The vision or Wawasan in the book talks about becoming among the top 10 nations in the world in terms of quality of life and income per capita. This is to be brought about by 8 strategies underlined through 650 policy directions, and 826 projects are to be implemented the current RKN (2007-2012) alone. Is this really a realistic vision when contrasted to the track record so far? Look at 2001-2005 GDP growth which saw only 2.1 % per annum growth, lower than global (3.8%) and Asean (5%) and even lower than fast developing economies like China which have double digit figures. On top of that the 2.1% growth was mainly fuelled by increase in hydrocarbon production, doubling of oil price and no major World economic crises. Pretty scary isn’t it.

Don’t want to sound negative. What I wish also to see more are real in-depth but realistic vision of future shape in Education, renewable energy vision, carbon emission vision, transportation, city vision and rural community vision that really reflect what we think will be in 2035. This is amongst the current issues facing the developed and global communities. In any case the book is a good start. Well done!