Equity Restructuring and Ownership

The Plan restates that the target of attaining at least 30% Bumiputra corporate equity ownership at macro level remains. It goes on to indicate that the focus will be on promoting genuine economic participation, consistent with the objective of sustainable high growth, rather than corporate equity allocation.

The Plan proclaims that this will be achieved through more transparent, market-friendly and merit-based instruments, focused on:

• Strengthening Bumiputra entrepreneurship to help create competitive businesses in high impact sectors;

• Increasing wealth ownership beyond corporate equity to include other properties and business assets such as retail space landed properties,
commercial buildings, intellectual properties and other services through pooling of funds and institutional investment; and

• Promoting Bumiputra representation in high paying jobs through enhanced capability building and demand-side incentives.

These statements can be cautiously welcomed as they represent a nuanced shift. However, if the past is any indicator, this shift may be no more than illusionary and a mutation of the NEP. Read the rest of this entry »

Poverty

Chapter 4 of the Plan document together with several Tables dealing with Thrust 3 in the Appendices present fairly detailed statistics on poverty and income distribution.

In a somewhat self-congratulatory tone, the Plan proclaims that hardcore poverty was reduced from 1.2% in 2004 to 0.7% in 2009 and that the incidence of overall poverty fell from 5.7% in 2004 to 3.8% in 2009. These claims are questionable because of the underlying methodology employed in deriving these estimates.

In the first place there is no indication as to how the Poverty Lines were estimated. Assuming that the methodology used mirrors that used in the 9th Plan, the bar to define poverty is set at far too low a level.

In the second place, the use of “households” rather than “persons” distorts the measurement.

On the flawed basis, 228,400 households were categorized as poor. It is most significant that of these 99,100 were in Sabah with another 27,100 in Sarawak. Thus, there were a disproportionate number of the poor in these two states highlighting gross neglect by the Federal government of Malaysians in these two states. Read the rest of this entry »

The Five Thrusts of the 10th Malaysia Plan

The Prime Minister stressed that the 10th Malaysia Plan is oriented around five key strategic thrusts, namely:

* Stimulating Economic Growth – implementing a policy framework that will galvanize the private sector and promote trade and investment;

* Moving towards Inclusive Socio-Economic Development – focusing government support on those most in need and reforming affirmative action policies;

* Developing and Retaining a First-World Talent Base – improving schools, providing skills training to those in the workforce and implementing important labour market reforms;

* Building an Environment that Enhances Quality of Life – investing in housing, transport, healthcare, utilities, crime prevention and the environment to support economic activity and improved living standards; and

* Transforming Government to Transform Malaysia – building on the success of the Government Transformation Program to continue to improve government performance and transparency to best serve the people

The question that arises is: How different are these in comparison with the corresponding thrusts that were outlined in the 9th Five Year Plan? Read the rest of this entry »

Unlearnt Lessons from the Past: Where have we come from?

The 1997 East Asia crisis provided a rude awakening. Absence of accountability, lack of transparency and the growing cronyism, nepotism and the megalomaniac obsession with mega projects Read the rest of this entry »