Posted on March 19, 2011, Saturday

KUCHING: Creativity and innovation are the catalysts that will drive the growth of businesses, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs), said Deputy Minister of International Trade and Industry (MITI) Datuk Jacob Dungau Sagan.

“The importance of innovation has become significant as the 10th Malaysian Plan which, among others, places strong emphasis on innovation and technology to drive the country’s economic growth. Realising the power of technology and innovation, the government has embarked on numerous initiatives to encourage SMEs to acquire technologies and keep abreast with the latest in global trends,” he said during the media briefing at Bank Negara Kuching yesterday.

In recognising this, SME Corporation Malaysia (SME Corp) in collaboration with MIGHT and SIRIM Bhd have organised the 1-InnoCERT (1-Innovation Certification for Enterprise Rating & Transformation) programme.

The 1-InnoCERT programme which started in March last year had been received well by SMEs. As at March 15 this year, he revealed that a total of 66 companies had been certified with 1-InnoCERT, out of which 65 SME Certified companies would be given priority in terms of assistance in financing and development programmes under the ‘Green Lane Policy’ which is currently being developed.

In encouraging more SMEs to embark on home-grown innovation initiatives, SME Corp has introduced the inaugural ‘SME Innovation Award’ last year, whereby the 1-InnoCERT programme had been utilised as the qualifying criteria for the award programme.

“For this year, the government through MITI and SME Corp is offering attractive prizes to winners for the SME Innovation Award 2011, which will be announced during SMIDEX 2011 – SME Innovation Showcase, to be held from June 7 to 9 this year,” said Jacob.

“I would like to invite more SMEs to participate in this programme to certify and foster growth of innovative SMEs to become homegrown champions,” he concluded.