ABSTRACT
Malaysia is a lower middle-income economy of approximately 19 million people, of whom 60 percent are indigenous (known as the Bumiputera), mainly Malay, and the remainder non-Malay (principally Chinese and Indian). Gross domestic savings levels in Malaysia are particularly high, averaging approximately 29 percent of GNP during the 1970s and 1980s, and exceeding 32 percent in 1992. Malaysia is a resource-rich economy, both in terms of oil and natural gas as well as non-mineral resources. Throughout the period from Independence until the late 1960s, the emphasis was on import substitution, but during the 1970s there was a shift towards labor-intensive and high-technology export-oriented production, to the extent that manufactured exports now account for over 50 percent of all exports. Within Malaysia itself, there are a number of different definitions of what constitutes an SOE, and frequently in official statistics, only the largest, wholly-owned SOEs are acknowledged.
