11th Malaysia Plan: ‘Bottom 40’ Group To Be Uplifted To Middle-class Society

THE 11^th Malaysia Plan (11MP) will include strategies that will improve the wellbeing of the bottom 40% households’ income group (B40 households).

The 11MP targets to achieve the following by 2020:

• Increasing the mean income of B40 to RM5,270
• 20% of B40 households to have family members with tertiary education
• The income share of the B40 to national household income to increase to 20%
• Income inequality of B40 to improve further with the Gini coefficient reducing to 0.385
• The size of middle-class society to grow to 45%

According to the 11MP report, up-skilling and providing job opportunities to the 2.7 million B40 households will reduce inequality passed on to future generations.

Some of the initiatives to raise the income and wealth of B40 households include:

1. Enhancing accessibility to higher education and skills training.
2. Reducing school dropouts.
3. Enhancing integrated entrepreneurship support.
4. Developing community and social-based enterprises.
5. Increasing ownership through investment programmes.
6. Employers will be given incentives to encourage their employees to pursue higher education and skill levels. Soft loan facilities will be provided to employees to further their studies.
7. SMEs owned by B40 households will be provided with better financing options and business facilitation. Partnerships with large firms will be initiated to provide more business opportunities for such SMEs.
8. Self-employed B40 households will be encouraged to adopt modern technology to increase productivity and income.
9. Strengthen the monitoring and enforcement of price control regulations to curtail unreasonable price increases for basic necessities. Price monitoring will ensure stable and adequate supply of goods and services and curb excessive market speculation, thus improving market efficiency and purchasing power.
10. The ‘1Harga 1Malaysia’ programme will be continued to standardise the prices of subsidised goods while Kedai Rakyat 1Malaysia and Coop1Malaysia stores will be expanded nationwide.
11. Affordable homes with special interest rate loans with a 10-year moratorium on sale of the property to be provided to enable them to own homes.
12. Existing low-cost flats and houses will be refurbished to improve living conditions of the community.
13. Narrowing the gap in post-secondary educational achievement.
14. Entrepreneur development organisations such as SME Corp Malaysia, SME Bank and Malaysian Technology Development Corp will continue to provide entrepreneurial training.
15. Affordable housing schemes by Perbadanan PR1MA Malaysia and Syarikat Perumahan Negara Bhd will be continued.

[Source 1] [Source 2]