Malaysia on the move to become a first world country

On the 31.03.2006 the prime minister of Malaysia presented the 9th Malaysia Plan (9MP), the five-year roadmap in order to become a first world country by 2020. With India and China growing at top speed the will to grow for Malaysia’s 25 people seems to have accelerated. According to the plan Malaysia wants to grow 6 percent every year mainly through tourism, agriculture and attracting foreign businesses as in the Penang Free International Zone and in improving its infrastructure and increasing competition Malaysia will try to compete globally. That all sounds very familiar to Chinese and Indian efforts but there are also a distinct Malaysian feature to the 9MP mainly concerning race. Malaysia’s goal to reach a 30 percent ownership of enterprises by Malays has not been reached and the positive racial discrimination seems to push bright Non-Malay Malaysian abroad leading to a brain-drain. The racial segregation of Malaysia will surely create further tension and the government still prefers segregation to integration. Maybe they should think about a Swiss “Röschtigraben”?