When Datuk Seri Najib Razak became Prime Minister last April, he announced that the government would introduce a new economic model for the country to ensure that Malaysia makes a quantum leap to escape the middle-income trap to become a high-income country through greater emphasis on innovation, creativity and competitiveness.

In May last year, the Second Finance Minister, Datuk Seri Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah said the new economic model would be announced in the second half of the year.

Time is clearly of the critical essence to launch a new economic model as Husni subsequently admitted in a very frank speech in December that the country had lost a decade in economic stagnation.

In actual fact, the World Bank had recommended that Malaysia adopt a new economic model three years ago, stressing that industrial countries are already aiming for economic model 3.0, and with competition at economic model 1.0 intensifying, striving to achieve economic model 2.0 is not an option for Malaysia but a necessity.

The question is why the World Bank’s advice that Malaysia migrate to a new economic model 2.0 was ignored for three years, losing more precious time for Malaysia to catch up in the international competitiveness race when the country had become a straggler as compared to other countries.

When the country achieved nationhood in 1957, Malaysia was the second most economically-advanced country in Asia after Japan.

Today, South Korea’s GDP per capita is US$16,450, Singapore US$34,346, Hong Kong US$29,559 while Malaysia is still at US$7,469 – with the disparity between Malaysia and these countries set to become wider in the coming years and even risking of being overtaken by countries like Thailand, Vietnam and even Indonesia!

The time-line for the announcement of the new economic model has been repeatedly deferred, from last year to the beginning of this year, then to this month to coincide with the completion of Najib as Prime Minister and now finally to June when the 10th Malaysia Plan will be presented to Parliament with the NEM to be revealed later this month for public feedback.

The disruption of the plan to announce the new economic model to commemorate Najib’s first year as Prime Minister is a setback for Najib’s 1Malaysia as well as a competitive and innovative new economic model and a success for the plethora of Neo-NEP Umnoputra NGOs and NGIs to whom have been outsourced the agenda of Umno’s NEP-putras.

Malaysians and the world are wondering what new economic model of greater innovation, creativity and competitiveness could be formulated by Najib against the backdrop of reactionary and extremist pressures with irresponsible and baseless alarms like “the Chinese community will take over the country in the next general elections” and that Article 153 of the Constitution would be trampled upon with Malay interests (when they mean Neo-NEP Umnoputra interests) sidelined.

It is also pertinent to ask how Najib could inspire confidence in the Malaysia 2.0 new economic model when he has done nothing in the past year as Prime Minister to stop the brain drain of Malaysia’s talents abroad or to achieve brain gain.

One of the specific proposals made by the World Bank three years ago for Malaysia to migrate to a new economic model Malaysia 2.0 was: “Engaging and attracting back talented, experienced, wealthy and well-connected members of Malaysian diaspora”.

If Najib is incapable of checking Malaysia’s braindrain which had led to the emigration of two generations of the best and brightest overseas as to create a two-million-strong Malaysian diaspora in the world, how can the Prime Minister succeed in achieving “brain gain” or to reverse “brain drain” from the Malaysian diaspora?

It is not only non-Malays but more and more Malays have also joined the emigration trail.

I still remember the ambitious “brain gain” programme of the Eighth Malaysia Plan ten years ago to “reverse brain drain” to transform Malaysia into a K-economy and Information Society through a two-pronged strategy, viz:

• An annual “brain gain” of 5,000 “extraordinary world citizens of extraordinary talent” to “lure the best brains regardless of race or nationality, from Bangalore to California”; and

• Encourage 500 skilled Malaysians overseas every year to return home with their expertise from 2001.

This ambitious “brain gain” programme was an unmitigated failure – with Malaysia losing even more talents in the past decade.

Malaysia is not short of proposals for a new economic model Malaysia 2.0 but what is sorely lacking is the political will to implement them.

How can Najib ensure that the new economic model of Malaysia 2.0 to be announced by him will not fail because of the lack of political will to carry out far-reaching government transformation programmes including restoring national and international confidence in the key national institutions and the system of governance in Malaysia?

[Speech (7) by DAP Parliamentary Leader and MP for Ipoh Timor Lim Kit Siang in Dewan Rakyat on the Royal Address on Thursday, 18th March 2010]