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Achieving High Income Status By 2020 Realistic, Says Renown Economist

From UKM News Portal


UESDAY, 05 FEBRUARY 2013 12:34
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By Saiful Bahri Kamaruddin
Pix Shahiddan Saidi

Kuala Lumpur, 30 Jan 2013 – Malaysia’s goal of achieving a high-income status by the year 2020 is realistic given the policies that the government had introduced and the country’s stability.
Renowned Norwegian economic researcher, Professor Dr Erik S. Reinert said a nation's economy cannot primarily bejudged on its export performance but must also be based on the standard of living of its inhabitants.In Malaysia this is being continuously improved upon by the government.
Prof Reinert, delivering his lecture entitled The Fall of the Westand the Rise of Asia, today said Malaysia will not be trapped in the "middle-income syndrome" but will progress to achieve its high-income goal by 2020, given the growth and equity based economic policies that the government has implemented so far.
He holds the Chair of the Tun Ismail Ali Distinguished Chair in Investment and Finance at The National University of Malaysia (UKM). His lecture in Kuala Lumpur was the second in the Tun Ismail Ali Memorial Lecture Series of 2012/2013, organised by Permodalan Nasional Berhad.
Prof Reinert noted that the Malaysian economy has been widely presumed being stuck in the middle between the high-income and the low-income economy brackets.
But as he sees it, Malaysia is not stuck in the middle a supposition that comes from the United States, which assumes that a nation can only achieve high growth by exporting more to America.
According to this assumption, countries in the middle cannot compete with low-cost nations such as China and India or high technology economies like Singapore and Taiwan.
He said Malaysia definitely does compete with all these countries.
He said the high-income goal by 2020 is achievable given the fact that Malaysia has gone through many stages of economic development in a very short span of time, because of economic development plans drawn under the growth and equity model.

He praised Malaysia for transforming from a raw material based economy to a modern industrial segment which serves as a testament to the statement that Malaysia is doing very well in a challenging world.
He, however, cautioned that it was important for Malaysia to focus more on technological change and being at the forefront of technological development, such as the new areas of solar energy.
He also said Malaysia should find niches, be focussed and segment its exports as well as limiting its dependence on exports, a good insurance policy against the crises in the West.
He proposed Malaysia protect its local and traditional manufacturing sectors such as the automotive industry, while at the same time promote domestic research and development.
Prof Reinert is the author of How Rich Countries Got Rich and Why PoorCountries Stay Poor. The book won the Myrdal Prize in Economics and the Norwegian Selvaag Prize, both in 2008.
His research interests and publications focussed around the theory of uneven development and the history of economic thought and policy.

ttp://drmsafar.blogspot.com/2013/02/achieving-high-income-status-by-2020.html
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