International Higher Ed News
Malaysian PM Says Affirmative Action Policy Still Needed To Ensure Unity
By Associated Press
Jul 10, 2007, 19:58

KUALA LUMPUR Malaysia
Malaysia's leader defended the country's decades-old affirmative action policy for majority Malays, saying Tuesday it was still needed to narrow income disparity among ethnic groups and ensure national unity.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi acknowledged the 37-year-old New Economic Policy that gives a host of privileges in jobs, education, business and other areas to ethnic Malays had been widely regarded as a "cost to doing business" in Malaysia.

"But many fail to appreciate the spirit behind the policy," Abdullah, who is also finance minister, told an economic conference in Kuala Lumpur.

"The objective to disassociate race from occupation or social standing is critical in ensuring the long-term unity and cohesion of our country," he said.

Europe's envoy to Malaysia, Thierry Rommel, last month criticized the policy, or NEP, as discriminatory and amounting to protectionism against foreign companies. Rommel also warned the NEP could thwart free trade talks between the European Union and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes Malaysia.

Rommel's comments angered the government and sparked calls for lawmakers to review the NEP.

Abdullah said it was the NEP that led to stability in Malaysia during the Asian financial crisis a decade ago and spared it from racial riots.

"The expansion of an educated and multiethnic middle class, thanks to affirmative action policies, had mitigated the risk of mass unrest but great disparities in income and social mobility still exist between ethnic groups," he said.

"Whereas this may be just another issue in other countries, ethnic-based disparity strikes at the heart of national unity for Malaysia."

The NEP was started in 1970 when corporate ownership by ethnic Malays who make up about 60 percent of Malaysia's 26 million people was 2 percent. The aim is to raise Malay corporate ownership to 30 percent by 2010; it stands at 19 percent now.

Many Malays have complained the policy has benefited only a few well-connected people. Minority Chinese and Indians, as well as foreigners, also see the NEP as a discriminatory tool.

Chinese, who form a quarter of the population, control 40 percent of corporate wealth.

- Associated Press