ABSTRACT
By 1957, the year of independence, there were already 29 public enterprises in Peninsular Malaysia. In the next twelve years up to 1969, 54 more public enterprises were established, and in the following four years (1969-1972), 67 new public enterprises were set up. Between 1972 and the early 1980s, the establishment of public enterprises gained greater momentum as such enterprises proliferated in Malaysia. With the First (1956-1960) and Second (1961-1965) Five-Year Development Plans and the First Malaysia Plan, the government's strategy of development was to undertake rural development directly, to develop the infrastructure of the economy, and generally to leave the development of commerce and industry to private enterprise. Extensive use of public enterprises to overcome various socio-economic problems attributed to market failure and inequity suddenly became the new orthodoxy. The role of public enterprises became more pronounced after the launching of the Second Malaysia Plan and the New Economic Policy with an Outline Perspective Plan for 1971-1990.
