Organizer: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute
Type/Location: Hybrid / Singapore
Description:
Tracing the trajectory of ethnic equity redistribution in Malaysia from the 1969 New Economic Policy (NEP) to the 2024 Putera35 policy, this analysis reveals a persistent paradox: despite over five decades of affirmative action, Bumiputera equity ownership has stagnated, non-Bumiputera ownership has fallen below its 1970 level, and foreign shareholding has rebounded sharply in recent decades. This outcome reflects not merely flaws in policy design, but the institutional framework of implementation – arrangements that have systematically enabled political mediation, rent allocation, and elite concentration over structural inequality reduction.
Across successive administrations, equity targets have been periodically rebranded around poverty eradication, wealth redistribution, and enterprise development. Yet persistent gaps between policy objectives and outcomes point to a structural flaw in governance. Limited transparency and weak accountability mechanisms have channelled benefit allocation through state-linked networks, conceptualized here as the Political-GLC Complex, an interconnected ecosystem of government institutions, government-linked companies, and politically connected enterprises. Examining the interplay between state institutions, corporate ownership, and market access, this study demonstrates that institutional proximity has ultimately eclipsed entrepreneurial capability as a primary determinant of economic opportunity.
About the Speaker:
Dr. Edmund Terence Gomez is Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at the Faculty of Business & Economics, Universiti Malaya. Since 1990, he has published extensively on the nexus between politics and business. His most recent books on the subject are Minister of Finance Incorporated: Ownership and Control of Corporate Malaysia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and Misgovernance: Grand Corruption in Malaysia (Penguin, 2024).
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