Malay Entry into Business through Scaling the Heights of Corporate Malaysia from mid-1980s – An Assessment

Abstract

The aim of this paper is in identifying and analysing, from an economic perspective, the policies, programs and instruments the government used in promoting Malay entry into business, the form of this entry, including of rent-seeking, the extent to which Malays have scaled the heights of Corporate Malaysia as well as of the factors accounting for the success or failure of this agenda in the post-1985 period after the launch of the corporatisation and privatisation era. The discussion on the performance as well as of the key problems and issues encountered from the country’s use of the corporatisation or privatisation route to promote entry, is also combined with a similar discussion on its use of: (a) government linked investment companies (GLICs) in promoting Malay entry into business from an almost non-existent level in 1957, (b) the private finance initiative (PFI) or the build, lease, maintain and transfer (BLMT) model in promoting entry as an owner-manager in the era of corporatisation and institutional fund management, as well as (c) multiple instruments in aggressively promoting entry within an industry or sector with multiple goals.