MALAYSIA TO EMBARK ON THE NEXT PHASE OF DEVELOPMENT

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak successfully launched his 2012 budget with style in the parliamentary session last Friday. Although the Budget would continue with the tradition of placing the people’s welfare and country’s well-being as its top priority, Najib said it was important to create for every Malaysian child a brighter future that was full of hope and prosperity instead of fear and hate.

• Several more programmes to transform the country will be introduced as it prepares to embark on the next phase of development. Announcing this during the tabling of Budget 2012, Najib said these programmes would complement the Government Transformation and Political Transformation programmes.
• After 53 Budgets, 10 five-year development plans, three outline perspective plans, and various national policies between 1971 and last year, he said Malaysia was ready for its next phase of development.
• “All these will culminate into the National Transformation Policy, effective from this year until 2020 and today, we continue our journey together towards becoming a developed and high-income nation,” he said.

According to Najib, over the last 30 months, the Government has charted a clear path for our beloved nation to achieve the national vision. He added that this was not only about unity in diversity, improving public service delivery or restructuring the economy.

• “It includes the Political Transformation Programme which will create a new path for Malaysia’s next phase of development where differences of ideas will be celebrated and not lead to never ending conflicts and where no one will be punished or sidelined for ideological differences,” he said.
• Najib said that at a time of global uncertainties, the people’s strong support was mandatory in order for the country to become a developed, prosperous nation.
• Malaysia, he added, was successful and showed it was capable of changing from an agricultural and low-income country into a modern, industrial and upper middle-income nation within a short time.

Najib described this as an “extraordinary success, rather than a norm,” as there were many countries with more potential to succeed than Malaysia during their early days of independence but which didn’t.
“This success did not come easy. It was the result of hard work between the Government and the people who toiled together and held firmly to the principle of systematic planning and effective implementation

Source: Agency