KUALA LUMPUR, March 17 (Bernama) -- The soon-to-be-announced Malaysia's New Economic Model (NEM) should be focus on strategies that would make the country competitive regionally, globally and domestically, said former finance minister, Tun Daim Zainuddin.

"We have to embark on strategic liberalisation to be competitive. The key enablers--human capital and technology--must be strengthened so that they will be the catalysts for the new economy," he said in an interview with Malaysian Business which appeared in its March 16 issue.

The excerpts from the interview were made available to Bernama here today.

He said the issue of poverty was still real and important, not just in terms of absolute poverty but also increasingly relative poverty and the NEM must address this.

Daim said the country also needed to improve its investment environment in areas like approval processes, the availability of skilled workers and effective incentives to attract both foreign direct investments and domestic investments.

He said there was a need to simplify investment procedures to ensure investment approvals were given quickly.

"Investment promotion must be targeted well and an easier approval process for foreign skilled workers should be established.

"We must know what the investors want and try to comply with their requests promptly. It's a competitive world out there," he said.

Daim said the Malaysian economy was likely to expand with the improvement in the global economy but recovery would remain weak.

"If the money set aside for the stimulus package was wisely disbursed, gross domestic product will grow around five per cent in 2010 because of the lagged effects and this growth rate is likely to continue in 2011," he said.

He said a stronger ringgit should reflect the fundamental strengths of the economy, as otherwise it was not a sustainable situation.

The level of the ringgit exchange rate should not be viewed in terms of export price competitiveness alone but as having implications on the entire economy, he said.

The banker, whose ICB Group has branches in Europe, Asia and Africa, gives his take on a wide range of issues ranging from politics, ringgit, US economy and stock market to government policies.

His wealth of experience includes two stints as finance minister, including in 1999 where he helped the then Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad steer the economy out of the Asian financial crisis.