Sarawak hasn’t achieved high-income status yet, says state

 

Sarawak deputy minister Gerawat Gala is uncertain how the World Bank arrived at the conclusion that Sarawak is a high-income state. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: A state deputy minister has dismissed a World Bank economist’s statement that Sarawak is now a high-income state based on its gross national income (GNI).

Deputy minister in the premier’s department (labour, immigration and project monitoring) Gerawat Gala said the Sarawak government’s Post-Covid Development Strategy (PCDS) 2030 showed that the state’s current income per capita was lower than US$13,000 (RM60,600).

“I am not sure how the World Bank worked out that Sarawak’s GNI (has exceeded the high-income threshold of) US$13,205, which looks very high to me.

“Sarawak is not a high-income state yet. Our PCDS 2030 is targeted to make Sarawak a high-income state by 2030,” The Borneo Post quoted him as saying.

Meanwhile, Sarawak Federation of Chinese Associations president Richard Wee said the data used by the World Bank did not reflect the actual income of the entire Sarawakian population.

Wee said the data used did not take income distribution within the Borneo state into account, though the high GNI was an achievement in itself.

“While we are proud to achieve this significant milestone (based on the World Bank’s calculations), it is the first step towards being a developed region.

“The next challenge is to achieve a well-balanced income and wealth distribution towards the overall population of Sarawak.

“Another point to note is that achieving such status does not mean we do not have the poor and needy.

“Many advanced and rich cities and states do have their fair share of the poor and needy that need to be cared for too.

“We still have to work hard to ensure that all Sarawakians will benefit from such a status,” he added.

Earlier, World Bank economist Apurva Sanghi said Sarawak was now a high-income state, based on its conversion of the data obtained from Malaysia’s statistics department.

Penang and the federal territories of Kuala Lumpur and Labuan have also exceeded the high-income threshold, according to Apurva’s data.

The World Bank’s official blog divides the world’s economies into four income groups for each year – low, lower-middle, upper-middle and high – based on GNI per capita.

In the full country 2024 classification report (July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024), Malaysia is listed as an “upper-middle income economy”, along with Indonesia and China. - FMT