The Malaysian National Cooperative Movement (ANGKASA) is the apex body recognized by the government to represent the Malaysian cooperative movement at the national and international levels. ANGKASA was established through consensus achieved at the 2nd Malaysian Cooperative Congress and was officially registered on 12th May 1971.
ANGKASA’s core service is the Salary Deduction System - a system to organize automated mandatory repayments of loans, subscriptions, or insurance premium, provided to cooperative members, clubs, and mutual organizations among others. It is a trusted system that is beneficial to members as it ensures very minimal non-performing loans and secures the repayments of borrowers. ANGKASA implements business transformation and cooperative entrepreneurship programmes in high impact business sectors such as Banking and Finance, Agriculture and Agro-based Industry, Wholesale and Retail, Tourism, Personal and Health Care, Plantation, Real Estate and Construction Industry, Innovation and Technology and Community Development.
As of June 2020, ANGKASA represents 14,668 cooperatives nationwide with an individual membership of about 6.1 million people. As of December 2019, it recorded a share capital of RM15.4billion, total assets of RM146.8billion and a turnover of RM45.8billion.
ANGKASA became a member of the ICA in April 1972. Even before ANGKASA as an organization became a member, Malaysia was already among the first member countries within the ICA Asia and Pacific (ICA-AP). ANGKASA not only actively participates in ICA’s activities but also contributes to policymaking by having elected representatives in the ICA Global Board, the ICA-AP Regional Board as well as the global and regional sectoral committees of the ICA. Each year, ANGKASA also hosts and co-organises numerous programmes of ICA Global and ICA-AP including strategic events like the ICA-AP Regional Assembly in 1996, the Asia Pacific Ministers’ Conference in 2007, the 1st Asia Pacific Registrars’ Conference in 2013, the ICA Global Conference and General Assembly 2017, and the Global Youth Forum in 2020.
In 2012, ANGKASA offered Malaysia to host the International Cooperative Alliance – Asia Pacific Malaysia Business Office (MBO) which has strategic objectives to increase business interactions and exchanges between cooperatives and to promote cooperative to cooperative (C-2-C) trade in the region. It is registered as a society under the name ICA-AP Malaysia Branch but is widely known as the MBO.
This year, ANGKASA is celebrating its 50th anniversary which is a big milestone for the Malaysian cooperative movement. The momentous Golden Jubilee achievement is being celebrated with a cooperative-identity-centric theme; “Championing Cooperative Aspiration”. A line of events has been planned under the flagship of CSR COOPCARE throughout the year. COOPCARE is an ongoing ‘community care’ and ‘an environmental conservation’ programme to create awareness in line with achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The Malaysian Government through the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources has launched ‘Our Trees, Our Life’ Campaign in January 2021 to make Malaysia a green nation. The Making Malaysia Green Program is aimed to increase awareness on the importance of green cover areas and forests for the well-being and better quality of life as well as efforts to improve Malaysia’s ecosystem and biodiversity. This campaign aims to plant 100 million trees in five years from 2021 to 2025. Participating in this programme, ANGKASA has launched the CSR COOPCARE 1Million Trees project. The project is the cooperative movement’s commitment to integrating SDG13 – Climate Action and SDG 15 – Life on Land in support of UN’s Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021 – 2030 as part of ANGKASA’s Golden Jubilee initiative.
On 16th March 2021, ANGKASA and the National University of Malaysia (UKM) have agreed to collaborate in developing the Training of Trainers (ToT) module to be implemented at university cooperatives, community cooperatives and school cooperatives across Malaysia to provide basic education on types, physiology, and concept of crops as well as tree care and maintenance methods. This collaboration also includes partnering with the State of Selangor Forestry Department to implement tree plantation in 20 acres of degraded forest area to address the problem of carbon emissions that are increasing every year and as a restoration activity for cooperative members. Community members, private businesses and government agencies may also participate through ‘Adopt A Tree’ sponsorship packages which will be offered online.
ANGKASA aims to implement more community engagement programmes to increase community and agency’s involvement through cooperatives to plant a million trees. Through this project, cooperative movement in Malaysia will assist the government's efforts in preserving the environment whereby the government aims to increase at least 20% of terrestrial and inland water forest area in Malaysia within 10 years. ANGKASA is committed to continuing the project even when its targeted 1million trees have been planted. Therefore, the cooperative movement’s effort to protect, preserve and value the country’s biodiversity will be perennial.
