Chapter 5 Malaysia Country Report
Chapter 5 Malaysia Country Report Saadiah Mohammad Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia November 2014 This chapter should be cited as Mohammad, S. (2014), ‘Malaysia Country Report’, in Zen, F. and M. Regan (eds.), Financing ASEAN Connectivity, ERIA Research Project Report FY2013, No.15.Jakarta: ERIA, pp.167-218. CHAPTER 5 Malaysia Country Report Saadiah Mohammad Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia Introduction As a country, Malaysia represents one of the success stories in the ASEAN in terms of its top-down political commitment to the five-year economic plans. For one, a sizeable government budget is allocated every year for its infrastructure activities. Malaysia is now an upper middle-income country served in most parts by good quality roads and expressways and a system of communication comparable to that of any developed, high-income country in the world. Many of its indicators on infrastructure have reached world-class standards, although there are still disparities in terms of total coverage and quality of infrastructure especially between West Peninsular Malaysia and its eastern counterpart states of Sabah and Sarawak. For years, Malaysia had not relied much on external sources of infrastructure financing since the government for many years had always managed to source funds internally. However, this also meant that government expenditure has increased tremendously over the years as population, urbanisation, and economic growth continue to put increasing demands on infrastructure. Since the 1980s, the government has considered the privatisation option—i.e., inviting the private sector as its partner in public-private partnership (PPP) projects—in its attempt to reduce government's burden in sourcing.
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