KUALA LUMPUR, March 7 — The government will launch a more "fresh and inclusive” bumiputera plan for the next 10 years in June as an effort to boost bumiputera’s socioeconomic level in several fields and sectors.

Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli said inputs, suggestions and views from the Bumiputera Economic Congress (KEB) 2024 would be examined and included in this new direction of bumiputera empowerment.

"The government will focus on empowerment efforts, (such as) the empowerment of the bumiputera middle class who are able to create value for the economy.

"This will involve a shift from the current situation, from earning salaries to creating value. As such, more bumiputera middle class will participate in business and increase income, instead of only relying on salaried jobs,” he said at the Minister’s Question Time session in the Dewan Rakyat today.

He was replying to Zahir Hassan’s (PH-Wangsa Maju) question about the direction and new approach being drawn up as a result of KEB 2024 to boost the community’s socioeconomic level in order to remain competitive.

According to Rafizi, the bumiputra middle class produces highly experienced professionals, but it lags in terms of creating value compared with the non-bumiputra professionals in the country and also the middle class abroad.

"This focus means that we will encourage more professionals (to participate in businesses). Additionally, we need to depend less on capital mobilisation driven by government agencies.

"That’s why I believe we need to shift to creating a policy that is not solely focused on agencies or large funding from the government.

"This is done through the private sector in which the creation of value will be funded via new enterprises together with the (bumiputera and non-bumiputera) middle class,” he explained.

He said funding through private equity or venture capital efforts would enable the scaling of bumiputera businesses.

Hence, he said the government’s focus will be more on building an ecosystem in terms of laws, incentives, taxation, and building investment talent among the middle class.

"The government, through the Madani Economy framework, identifies new growth engines, namely energy transition, digital, modern agriculture and the more advanced electrical and electronics sector.

"Certainly, when the government puts these functions in place, it will start with (bridging) the gap, especially among bumiputera entrepreneurs and professionals.

"(It will also begin with) special programmes involving this group to acquaint businesses with the potential that exists and to encourage them to take the risk of joining this sector. This will be further refined (to take into account) several findings discussed in KEB 2024,” he said.

This continuous effort is seen as able to strengthen the group’s competitiveness, with an additional focus on talent empowerment and income growth to eradicate hardcore poverty.

The minister said the bumiputera poverty rate stood at 7.9 per cent, followed by Indians (5.4 per cent) and Chinese (1.9 per cent) in 2022.

Unemployment among bumiputera was also the highest at 387,800 people, 61.5 per cent of the total of 630,400 unemployed people.

The corporate equity ownership target of 30 per cent has also not yet been achieved, with a rate of 18.4 per cent in 2020 compared to non-bumiputera at 29.5 per cent. — Bernama