KUALA LUMPUR: The high-income target set by the government has not deviated despite the fact that the threshold figure may rise or dip according to various economic permutations.
Based on the current global macro-economic conditions, the high-income threshold for 2015 is estimated at US$12,303 (US$1=RM3.91), said the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) in a statement here, yesterday.
In response to the concerns shared by writer Saleh Mohammed in an article published in a local newspaper on April 28 titled “Be Inclusive to Achieve Vision”, PEMANDU said in 2010, the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) estimated a trajectory towards 2020, with the purpose of setting a target for Malaysia to achieve a high-income and developed nation status.
“In arriving at the high-income threshold of US$15,000, the Government took the 2009 World Bank’s high-income threshold of US$12,195 and factored in its published historical global inflation rate of 2.0 per cent estimated for high-income countries until 2020.
“With efforts to stabilise the currency and other efforts to strengthen the economy as narrated in the 11th Malaysia Plan, Malaysia is still on course to achieving high-income by 2020,” said PEMANDU.
On the difference between the gross national income (GNI) per capita figure in the National Transformation Programme (NTP) Annual Report 2015 versus Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) Report 2015, PEMANDU said its estimation of US$10,110 per capita is based on the World Bank Atlas method.
“The exact numbers will be published by the World Bank in June 2016,” said PEMANDU.
According to the BNM Annual Report, the US dollar GNI per capita is US$9,291.
“PEMANDU’s estimate of GNI per capita in 2015 based on the Atlas method is higher at US$10,110 because the Atlas method defined by the World Bank takes a three-year average for the exchange rate, instead of a one-year average for the exchange rate which would have been used by BNM,” it said.
The World Bank’s Atlas Model provides a high-income threshold that would position Malaysia relative to a global standard, said PEMANDU, adding it appreciated the constructive feedback given by Saleh. — Bernama