74th International Atlantic Economic Conference

October 04 - 07, 2012 | Montréal, Canada

Malaysian economic development, leading industries and industrial clusters

Sunday, October 7, 2012: 12:35 PM
Thomas J. Webster, Ph.D. , Finance & Economics, Pace University, New York, NY
This paper briefly reviews six decades of Malaysia’s economic development strategy, which may be described as bounded industrial policy that favors export-led growth.  The goal of the current Tenth Malaysia Plan (2011-2015) is to achieve high-income status by 2020 by promoting high-value-added production through increased investments in human capital, adoption of new technologies, and promoting entrepreneurship to drive innovation and creativity.  Principal components analysis suggests that the current structure of the Malaysian economy is appropriate for the government’s current development objectives.  Medoid partitioning identified three of 12 industrial clusters that consist of downstream, high-technology industry groups.