Muslim countries must start working on creating and developing their own technologies in order to stay ahead in technological advancement along with the developed nations.

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad noted that, right now, the Muslim world is still far behind and is dependent on creation and technologies of the non-Muslims, and that it needs to work doubly hard to catch up.

“If we do not start creating and developing our own technologies we will forever be playing catch-up with the rest of the developed nations.

“We have no choice but to start working on this,” he said during a round-table session and discussion at the Kuala Lumpur Summit 2019 in Kuala Lumpur today.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also participated in the session.

At the session themed “The Priority of Development and The Challenges”, Mahathir also expressed hope that the KL Summit would be able to come up with tangible strategies and approaches in addressing the matter.

He also said Muslim countries have no choice but to develop and progress as fast as possible if they are to remedy all the misfortunes that had befallen the ummah.

“We have spoken at length on the state of affairs of the Muslim world.

“While we may not have been able to fully dissect all that had caused our pain and anguish, we are mostly in agreement that it is our inability to keep up with the progress and development of the non-Muslims that have left us in the lurch,” he said.

In drawing up development strategies, he also pointed out the need to deal with the disruption caused by technological advancement and to make sure that they are continuously upgraded so as not to be irrelevant when new technologies emerge.

“The rapid pace of this technological advancement threatens to make obsolete some of the strategies and plans we chart today within a few years.

“Almost daily, we are now witnessing how some cutting edge technologies and advanced economic ventures, which are merely a few years old, had been made inconsequential and that had led to some segments of our workforce being made irrelevant,” he said.

Mahathir also shared with the delegates Malaysia’s development plans which provide clear strategies to set the way forward for national development agenda.

He added that the government had also recently launched the “Shared Prosperity Vision 2030”, a national development blueprint that outlines a 10-year goal aimed to create wealth for the country that would benefit all Malaysians.

And to deal with the Industrial Revolution 4.0, he said Malaysia has also introduced a national policy called Industry Forward, which focusses on digitally transforming Malaysia’s manufacturing sector and related services.

“The policy envisions Malaysia as a strategic partner for smart manufacturing, a primary destination for high-technologies and a total solution provider for the manufacturing sector in the region,” he added.

- Bernama