Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the role of the civil service as an important national institution needs to be further strengthened to propel the country towards achieving Vision 2020 to be a developed nation. 

The Deputy Prime Minister said civil servants over the years had played a major role in helping achieve various successes which have been recognised internationally.

"Our achievements (in various fields) are extraordinary in fact, this is the result of cooperation of all civil servants in working together with the country's leaders to achieve progress we can be proud of.

"We want to further strengthen the role of the civil service," he said when addressing a gathering of civil servants here on Friday.

Also present at the gathering attended by more than 6,000 federal and state civil servants in Pahang were Pahang Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Adnan Yaakob and State Secretary, Datuk Seri Saffian Ismail. 

Muhyiddin said the cooperation between the public and private sector also needed to be strengthened further so that Malaysia could be more innovative and competitive.

He said the successes achieved by the country were in no small measure the result of the good cooperation between the public and private sector.

However, he said the situation today was very different from before and that the people expected an even better delivery system from civil servants.

He reminded civil servants to raise the performance bar by being more creative and innovative.