PUTRAJAYA, May 25 (Bernama) -- The inaugural meeting of the Entrepreneur Development Council (MPU) held here Tuesday discussed among others, measures to raise the level of Bumiputera participation in the manufacturing sector.

Minister of International Trade and Industry, Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed said the level of Bumiputera involvement in the sector now was more concentrated in Terengganu and Kelantan but in smaller scale.

"It is more on making (snacks) keropok and kerepek. The entire involvement of the Bumiputera community in the sector for a turnover exceeding RM25 million is only three per cent at the moment," he said after chairing the meeting which lasted for three hours here.

"In Sabah and Sarawak they are also far behind."

Quoting the 2006 economic statistics, he said there were 6,641 or 25.2 per cent of Bumiputera companies in the sector from a total of 26,374 companies.

Therefore, a special approach must be taken to raise the participation of the Bumiputera community in the sector in which the other communities have ventured far more deeply, he said.

Mustapa said the MPU today also discussed looking at updating the database of Bumiputeras in all the economic sectors.

The MPU, a platform to raise Bumiputera participation in the country's economy, is a continuation of the mechanism implemented under the previous Ministry of Entrepreneur and Cooperation Development to help Bumiputera entrepreneurs.

Following the dissolution of the ministry last year, its various functions and duties were taken over by eight ministries and agencies.

Mustapa said in order to avoid any redundancy in functions and duties and wastage of funds, a special monitoring and supervisory committee would be formed. The establishment of such a committee was agreed during the meeting, he said.

He said that at the end of the New Economic Policy in 1990, Bumiputera equity achievement stood at only 19.3 per cent against a target of 30 per cent.

In terms of household income in 2008, he said Bumiputera recorded RM3,412, Chinese community RM4,823 and Indians RM3,739.

In terms of number of professionals in the same year, the number of Malay doctors and engineers exceeded 50 per cent from the total number of professionals in the field but this was still low when compared with the ratio of Bumiputera citizens who make up 65.9 per cent of the Malaysian population, he added.

-- BERNAMA