Malay-Chinese Win-Win Business Ties, Singapore Style.

Small Malay businesses could soon get advice on how to thrive from the Chinese community. This is one of several ideas being discussed by the Community Engagement Task Force. The group is aiming to forge closer ties between the Malay and Chinese communities. Some 120 Malay men and women are learning conversational Mandarin for the workplace.

The training is organised by Mendaki and the Singapore Chinese Chamber Institute of Business to boost the participants' employability and to help them communicate better with their Mandarin-speaking colleagues.

The Minister-in-Charge of Muslim Affairs, Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, says Malays can benefit from closer ties with the Chinese business community. "The Chamber has offered visits from their members or consultants to come down and meet small Malay businesses to talk to them about entrepreneurship and how to improve their businesses," he adds.

But Dr Yaacob also wants to foster better understanding between the races from young. So Chinese and Malay students at the Mendaki childcare centre may spend half a day every Friday learning about each other's customs.

And he says the upcoming Chinese New Year is an opportunity for everyone to immerse themselves in the Chinese culture. (Channel Newsasia)

***** It is good to see that the Singapore Malays have realized the importance of forging beneficial business ties with the Chinese there. In fact it would not be wrong to say that the same formula being tried out in Singapore will work in most countries in South East Asia where there is a strong commercial Chinese presence, including Malaysia. However here there seems to be some kind of inertia and absence of urgency probably because the Malays are being spoonfed.

Only when our local Malays are put in a Singapore type of situation where either you prosper or perish, will there be significant improvement in real quality. Whereas in Singapore, Minister Yaacob urges better communication between the races, here in Malaysia, the very policies of the government has caused only estrangement and disaffection. It is also ironical that while in Singapore, Chinese New Year is considered an opportunity for the Malays to 'immerse' in Chinese culture, here we are too busy passing fatwas to keep the religions and races apart.

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