Najib unveils his first, nation's 10th economic blueprint

By Syed Jaymal Zahiid

UPDATED KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak today unveiled the 10th Malaysian Plan (10MP) in Parliament. The plan is touted as the bellwether of change that could revive the country's ailing economy.

This is Najib's first economic framework and many of his neo-liberal policies expounded under his New Economic Model (NEM) is likely to be streamlined under the 10MP.

Slapped with the highest budget deficit in decades, at 7% of the GDP, the country's sixth premier is forced to bow to market demands even if it means risking alienating Malay voters, the country's majority race, who are unhappy with the NEM.

The 10MP will underline Najib's effort to continue his predecessors' endeavours to make Malaysia a developed nation by 2020.

To do this, the son of second premier Abdul Razak aims, to cut fiscal deficit to 2.8% of the GDP by 2015 through unpopular subsidy cuts and efforts to bolster the domestic market.

Innovation and productivity oriented economy, through augmented human capital development, will be one of the main thrusts of the new framework.

These objectives have been listed under the 10MP's 10-point strategy.

The 10MP also revealed measures to transform the nation into a high-income economy through a development expenditure allocation of RM230 billion for the next five years.

From the total, 55 percent was allocated for the economic sector, 30 percent for the social sector, 10 percent for security and 5 per cent for administration.

Najib said the 10MP plan was vital to continue the vision and objective of the nation and if vigorously and consistently implemented, would see Malaysia through the challenging times and enable the nation to be a high-income and developed nation by 2020.

Three more pillars have been erected to drive the plan through, namely with the introduction of the 1Malaysia concept of "People First, Performance Now"; Government Transformation Plan (GTP) and New Economic Model (NEM), he said.