On track towards high income

Malaysia is on the right trajectory towards becoming a high-income nation by 2020.

This is based on what it has managed to achieve so far in the first year of its Economic Transformation Programme (ETP), said Datuk Seri Idris Jala, who is chief executive officer of Pemandu, the unit under the Prime Minister’s Department that oversees ETP’s implementation.

Some RM10 billion in investments under the ETP have been realised so far.

The amount constitutes 64 per cent of RM15 billion investments committed for this year, he said in an analyst-and-media briefing here yesterday that marked ETP’s one year anniversary.

Projects are also “prog ressing well”, with 70 out of the 131 entry point projects (EPPs) under ETP had taken off. “As some EPPs have multiple projects,we nowhave 97 projects which are in various stages of implementation.” Malaysia made good progress, matching up to its targets this year for gross national income (GNI), private investments and jobs creation, which Idris described as “the most important numbers”.

In the first half of this year, the country realised 58 per cent of its GNI target of RM494 billion, 62 per cent of its full-year target of RM83 billion for private investments, and about half of its jobs target of 684,000, Idris said.

As for foreign direct investments (FDI), they grew by 76 per cent compared with the first half of last year. The government also brought home more than 450 Malaysians working abroad under Talent Corp’s Returning Expert Programme, he said.

“To me, we are okay and are on the right trajectory. We need to keep the momentum and stay focused.

This is not a sprint. No one in the government is declaring victory here,” Idris said of the ETP’s progress.

He believed that the European debt crisis would not lead to a global recession, but would slow down economic growth next year.

When asked what Malaysia could learn from Singapore in attracting FDI, Idris said the country needed to stay focused through the ETP’s 12 key economic areas and stay competitive through its reform initiatives.

“We lost the plot over the last 10 years because we wanted to do everything under the sun. Let’s not lose that focus, orwe’ll end up becoming ‘Mr Average’.” On the goods and services tax, he said it would have to be implemented “sooner, rather than later”, adding that 104 other countries were already using this as a way to boost revenue.

By Adeline Paul Raj, news@nst.com.my