MALAYSIA IS SUCCESSFUL DUE TO UNORTHODOX ECONOMIC MEASURES

KUALA LUMPUR, June 25 (Bernama) -- Malaysia's success in economic reforms
is due to unorthodox measures that have been adopted by the government, says
Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Nor Mohamed Yakcop.

He said Malaysia was known by the entire world for creating and implementing
unusual methods and mechanisms in handling crisis, especially those concerned
with the national economy.

The unorthodox measures, he said had broken the conventional thoughts that
the government has "no business being in business".

"We started with the implementation of the New Economic Policy in 1970 and
later continued to do wonders in the 1986 economy recession.

"When the 1997/98 economy recession struck, most of the countries believed
in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), yet, we took very unorthodox measures
through Tun Dr Mahathir," he said during A forum on "GLC's What's
Next?", held on the sidelines of the inaugural Government-Linked Companies (GLC)
Open Day here Friday.

Nor Mohamed said Malaysia had proven the effectiveness of their unusual
approach when Western countries started to follow Malaysia's footsteps in
implementing similar methods after the 2008 financial crisis.

"There are so many government-linked companies now. Banks and automotive
companies in the West are being regarded as GLCs, resembling the same step we
took, a long time ago.

"Even former IMF Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, in March, admitted the
importance of the unorthodox system which was implemented by most countries
after the 2008 financial disaster," he said, adding the present government was
also creating and implementing new, as well as, integrated methods in it's
economic approach.

"The Economic Transformation Plan and Government Transformation Plan are
some of them," he added.
-- BERNAMA