KUALA LUMPUR – Putrajaya’s ten-year plan to restructure the economy to empower the Bumiputera, while not sidelining other races, will be launched in June, according to Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli told the Dewan Rakyat today.
Reiterating his remarks made at the recent Bumiputera Economic Congress, he said this Bumiputera empowerment agenda will be “fresher and more inclusive”.
“The long-term plan to empower the Bumiputera will be fresher and more inclusive without sidelining the roles of all ethnic groups in Malaysia will be launched in June 2024, including efforts to improve the socio-economic standing of Bumiputera through various sectors so that they can be competitive,” he said during Ministers’ Question Time today.
Rafizi was answering a question by Zahir Hassan (Wangsa Maju-PH) on the government’s direction for Bumiputera empowerment following the recently-concluded Bumiputera Economic Congress.
Rafizi today highlighted statistics on the economic situation of Malaysia’s main ethnic groups, noting that absolute poverty was still the highest among the Bumiputera in 2022, at 7.9%.
The absolute poverty rate for Indians was 5.4%, and for Chinese, 1.9%.
The unemployment rate in 2022, meanwhile, was 4.8% for Indians and 4% for Bumiputera. Unemployment among the Chinese was 3.1%.
However, the Bumiputera group recorded the highest number of unemployed persons, at 387,800 people or 61.5% of the country’s total unemployed persons, according to the Labour Force Surveys 2022.
Corporate equity owned by Bumiputera is also the lowest at 18.5% in 2020, compared to non-Bumiputera at 29.5%, he added.
“This means that our target of corporate equity owned by 30% Bumiputera is yet to be achieved,” Rafizi said.
“Now, the challenge is to shift the middle-class Bumiputera who are professionals and have experience, but are not on par in terms of creating value compared to non-Bumiputera professionals.”
He said the difficulty in creating value was because middle-class Bumiputera are mostly in salary-based professions.
“This focus means that we need to encourage more Bumiputera professionals in this middle-class group to create value, and we also need to shift to capital mobilisation – those who are dependent on government agencies,” he said.
To address this, the long-term plan will have to create policies that encourage Bumiputera middle-class professionals to participate in equity, rather than giving large allocations to boost their income.
“The focus should be on building an ecosystem in terms of the law, tax incentives, (among others), thus building investment talents among the middle-class professionals, so that the funds can be channelled through private equity and venture firms.
“This will allow the scaling of the Bumiputera businesses that will move the middle-class Bumiputera and encourage them to participate in equity, empowering them in the economy,” he said. – March 7, 2024