Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Towards a Middle-Class Society aMiddle-Class Towards DECEMBER 2014 MALAYSIA ECONOMIC MONITOR DECEMBER 2014 TOWARDS A MIDDLE-CLASS SOCIETY Southeast Asia Country Management Unit Country Director: Ulrich Zachau Chief Economist: Sudhir Shetty Comments to: Mathew A. Verghis
[email protected] Frederico Gil Sander
[email protected] 30th Floor, Siam Tower 989 Rama I Road, Pathumwan Bangkok 10330, Thailand +66 (0) 2 686-8300 www.worldbank.org/my Acknowledgements This edition of the Malaysia Economic Monitor was prepared by Frederico Gil Sander (task team leader), Truman Packard, Ririn Salwa Purnamasari, Mauro Testaverde, Konstantin M. Wacker, Wei Aun Yap and Pui Shen Yoong, under the overall guidance of Ulrich Zachau, Sudhir Shetty, Shubham Chaudhuri and Mathew Verghis. Outstanding research assistance was provided by Marife Lou Bacate and Theepakorn Jithitikulchai. The team wishes to thank Ulrich Zachau, Mathew Verghis, Philip O’Keefe, Mark Dorfman, Ekaterine Vashakmadze and Nikola Spatafora for helpful comments, suggestions and guidance. This report benefited from fruitful discussions, comments, and information from various sections of the Economic Planning Unit in the Prime Minister’s Department, the Economics Department of Bank Negara Malaysia, the Department of Statistics Malaysia, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (PEMANDU), TalentCorp, Khazanah Research Institute, and other Government ministries and agencies. We also thank representatives from the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers, the American Malaysian Chamber of Commerce, and analysts at several financial and rating institutions for helpful discussions. We wish to especially thank the EPU and the Department of Statistics for providing the preliminary data of the 2014 Household Income Survey.