Malaysia Development Experience Series

CRISIS AND RECOVERY: Learning from COVID-19’s Economic Impacts and Policy Responses in East Asia

Launch Event | Key Findings | Download Report (pdf)

Three years post the initial COVID-19 case, the World Bank reviews the economic impact and government reactions in six East Asian countries: Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Though neighboring, each nation faced unique challenges and took diverse approaches to manage the crisis, with mixed results.

Shaping First Steps: A Comprehensive Review of Preschool Education in Malaysia

Key Findings | Download Report (pdf)

This report on early childhood development produced through a three-step engagement strategy involving various stakeholders, marks the first time in over a decade that stakeholders have come together to discuss common challenges and potential solutions.

Unleashing Sustainable Finance in Southeast Asia

Key Findings | Download Report (pdf)

The report emphasizes sustainable finance growth, but ASEAN-5's debt and equity markets need to be revised for their sustainability objectives. The financial sector must adapt for adequate support, integrating sustainability into core decision-making.

Digitalizing SMEs to Boost Competitiveness

Launch Event | Download Report (pdf)

Malaysia's digital economy grew rapidly, further accelerated by COVID-19, granting businesses access to digital platforms. However, SMEs' digitalization needs improvement. The report analyzes opportunities and challenges for SMEs to leverage digital tools, enhancing productivity and competitiveness.

Islamic Finance and the Development of Malaysia’s Halal Economy

Launch Event | Key Findings | Download Report (pdf)

This report explores how Islamic finance can further contribute to the development of Malaysia’s halal economy in supporting the country's aims to enhance Islamic finance support for the halal industry's competitiveness.

Technologies and Solutions to Manage Plastic Waste in Small and Remote Islands: Using the Technology Options for Plastic Waste in Island Contexts (TOPIC) Toolbox for Islands in Malaysia

Key Findings | Download Report (pdf)

This study combines a global assessment of plastic waste management on islands with a review of existing technologies and their viability in island contexts to develop the Technology Options for Plastic Waste for Island Contexts (TOPIC) Toolbox, piloted on five islands in Malaysia.

Deep-Dive on Malaysia’s Digital Services Trade

Download Report (pdf)

This deep dive seeks to explain how the role of digital services trade can be enhanced to contribute to Malaysia’s competitiveness and integration into the global marketplace.

Deep-Dive on Malaysia’s Higher Education Services Trade

Download Report (pdf)

The paper finds that despite numerous liberalization measures, some remaining restrictions and limitations continue to impact trade in the sector. The report finds that the most significant policy challenges likely relate to domestic constraints. To attract international students and faculty members and to enhance trade in the higher education sector, it is crucial to ease the visa and immigration processes and rules.

Strengthening Services Trade in the Malaysian Economy

Download Report (pdf)

This report explains the main constraints holding back the country's services sector. The key finding is that Malaysia’s development strategy needs to pivot to better capture new trade patterns. This must address some main constraints facing Malaysia’s services sector development.

SME Program Efficiency Review

Download Report (pdf)

This study analyses the composition of Malaysia's SME and entrepreneurship support policies to identify opportunities to decrease redundancies and to increase efficiencies by ensuring that public support towards SME development responds effectively to the most pressing needs of SMEs.

Malaysia: Assessment of the Start-Up Financing Ecosystem

Download Report (pdf)

This study aims to identify the financing gaps in Malaysia's start-up financing ecosystem and propose specific policy levers to address the identified constraints on the availability of and access to early-stage financing.

Exploring Nature-related Financial Risks

Launch Event | Download Report (pdf) | Press release

A better understanding of nature-related financial risks is essential for prudential supervision to identify and address emerging risks in banks' and other financial institutions' loan books and investments. This report assesses the exposure of Malaysian banks to sectors and regions that are highly vulnerable to nature-related risks. This study makes use of both Malaysian and global data.

Multidimensional Poverty in Malaysia: Improving Measurement and Policies in the 2020s

Download Report (pdf)

This paper analyzes the construction and use of the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) in Malaysia, which the Malaysian government introduced in its national development plan for 2015–2020. It examines avenues for improving the relevance of the MPI in policy discourse by setting deprivation thresholds of the various MPI dimensions (health, education, living conditions, income) at levels more appropriate for an upper-middle-income country such as Malaysia.

Non-Performing Loans in East Asia and the Pacific: Practices and Lessons in Times of COVID-19

Launch Event | Download Report (pdf)

This report discusses the quality of loan portfolios in the banking sector of EAP jurisdictions and the principal vulnerabilities surrounding credit markets that may negatively impact the credit quality of banking portfolios and amplify the effects of the COVID-19 crisis.

Malaysia Country Gender Note 2021

Download Report (pdf)
The Malaysia Country Gender Diagnostic Note will serve as a guide to identifying the priority areas for the World Bank country office in Malaysia to address the gender equality challenges in meeting the country’s aspirations and next stage of development, particularly in inclusive growth and sustainability.

Islamic Trade Finance: An Opportunity for Malaysia

Launch Event | Download Report (pdf)

The World Bank’s Islamic Trade Finance – An Opportunity for Malaysia report highlights ITF's substantial role in supporting trade, fostering growth, and accelerating post-pandemic recovery. In addition to its impact on the domestic economy, enhancing ITF can benefit other OIC-member countries and the global Islamic finance industry in which Malaysia is an established leader.

Market Study for Malaysia: Plastics Circularity Opportunities and Barriers

Download Report (pdf)

Mismanaged plastic waste has growing economic and environmental consequences. Malaysia is playing an active role at the regional level and setting ambitious national goals. This study addresses a critical need for a market assessment of the plastics value chain in Malaysia.

Malaysia’s Experience with National Development Planning: Looking Back, Looking Ahead

Download Report (pdf)

This paper describes and evaluates Malaysia’s experience with National Development Planning (NDP). It discusses Malaysia’s approach to national planning and how it has\ driven economic transformation and helped strengthen social cohesion.

Aiming High: Navigating the Next Stage of Malaysia’s Development

Key findings | Download Report (pdf)

In just one generation, Malaysia has seen great success growing from a low- to upper-middle-income economy. Malaysia’s economy today is significantly different from its transitional and aspirational peers. To compete with other high-income countries, factor accumulation is no longer sufficient to maintain growth.

A Silver Lining - Productive and Inclusive Aging for Malaysia

Highlights | Download Report (pdf)

The report analyzes Malaysia’s demographic, socioeconomic, and macroeconomic contexts and identifies key policy areas where critical knowledge gaps exist–employment, income security, and aged care.

Assessing the Effectiveness of Public Research Institutions: Fostering Knowledge Linkages and Transferring Technology in Malaysia

Launch Event | Highlights | Download Report (pdf)

A sustained increase in private investment and productivity improvements will be necessary to maintain a sustainable economic growth trajectory that enables Malaysia to reach high-income status.

Management Practices in Malaysia: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Highlights | Download Report (pdf)

This report aims to use data from the World Management Survey (WMS) to benchmark the quality of management practices in Malaysia against comparator countries and investigate the drivers of management practices.

Pioneering the Green Sukuk: Three Years On

Highlights | Download Report (pdf)

This report covers the basics of what makes a green sukuk, a brief history of the developmental work leading to the first green sukuk, followed by an assessment of the green sukuk market to date, before concluding with some key challenges and opportunities and what this could mean for policymakers and regulators.

Malaysia’s Domestic Bond Market: A Success Story

Download Report (pdf)

This report focuses on developing Malaysia’s local bond market as a long-term local currency (LCY) financing source.

Malaysia - Islamic Finance and Financial Inclusion

Highlights | Download Report (pdf)

This report explores Islamic finance's role in furthering financial inclusion in Malaysia and draws critical lessons from experience.

Leveraging Islamic Fintech to Improve Financial Inclusion

Highlights | Download Report (pdf)

This report aims to evaluate the global developments in fintech solutions by Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) and their impact on financial inclusion within its core markets.

Developing a National Green Taxonomy: A World Bank Guide

Press Release | Download Report (pdf)

The publication will help regulators in emerging economies who seek to “green” their countries’ financial systems.

Aspirations Unfulfilled: Malaysia's Cost of Living Challenges

Highlights | Download Report (pdf)

A study on the impact of the cost of living among Malaysians from various demographics

Who is Keeping Score? Estimating the Number of Foreign Workers in Malaysia

Highlights | Download Report (pdf)

With foreign labor as a critical contributor to growth, a better understanding of their numbers can facilitate a more rigorous analysis of their impact on the economy and formulation of evidence-based policies to manage foreign workers and harness the benefits of foreign labor.

Public-Private Dialogue in Business Regulation Reform: A Case Study on PEMUDAH

Download Report (pdf)

This study explores the fundamental tenets of successful public-private dialogues and their importance in the overall development of an economy.

Malaysia's Experience with the SME Masterplan: Lessons Learned

Highlights | Download Report (pdf)

SMEs account for 98.5% of total firms in Malaysia and the bulk of the country’s production and employment.

Agricultural Transformation and Inclusive Growth: The Malaysian Experience

Executive Summary | Download Report (pdf) | Press Release

The Malaysian story involves a farsighted leadership that has mobilized the considerable assets of a resource-rich country to translate a long-term vision of nation-building into action and transformational results.

Regulatory Governance for Development and Growth: Malaysia's Experience with Good Regulatory Practices

Highlights | Download Report (pdf)

Good Regulatory Practices (GRP) are a systematic application of tools, institutions, and procedures that governments can mobilize to ensure that regulatory outcomes are practical, transparent, inclusive, and sustained.

Breaking Barriers: Toward Better Economic Opportunities for Women in Malaysia

Highlights | Download Report (pdf) | Press Release

Promoting economic opportunities for women is one of the most promising avenues for Malaysia’s future development. 

Monitoring Occupational Shortages-Lessons from Malaysia’s Critical Occupations List

Highlights | Download report (pdf) | Press Release

Malaysia’s ‘Critical Occupations List’ is an innovative tool for preparing workers for the jobs of the future.

Case Study on the Employees Provident Fund of Malaysia

Highlights | Download report (pdf) | Press release

Malaysia's Employees Provident Fund (EPF) transitioned from a relatively small public retirement fund for private and non-pensionable public sector employees in 1949 to one of the most significant pension funds among developing countries.

Budgeting for Performance in Malaysia

Highlights | Download report (pdf)

In Malaysia, the government has undertaken a more outcome-based approach to the annual budget process, representing an evolutionary step towards performance-based budgeting.

Greenback 2.0 Johor Bahru Report: Migrant Workers' Remittances from Malaysia

Download the report (pdf)

“Project Greenback 2.0 –Johor Bahru” is the product of a partnership between the World Bank and Bank Negara Malaysia, aimed at supporting the development of an efficient and transparent remittance market. 

Improving Education Sector Performance in Malaysia: Lessons from a Delivery Unit Approach

Highlights | Download report (pdf) | Press release

Malaysia’s efforts to tackle education challenges, mainly through establishing a ‘delivery unit’ that tracks results, can help other countries seeking to improve implementation in the sector.

Enhancing Public Sector Performance: Malaysia’s Experience With Transforming Land Administration

Highlights | Download report (pdf) 

According to a new World Bank report, Malaysia’s success in reforming land policies and land administration can help other developing countries strive to manage their resources better.

Test

Open Data Readiness Assessment: Malaysia

Download the report (pdf) 

According to a new World Bank report, Malaysia is ready to formulate an action plan to enable broad public access to government data and strengthen data use in development planning.

Financial Inclusion in Malaysia: Distilling Lessons for Other Countries

Presentation | Download report (pdf) 

According to a recent World Bank report, Malaysia has achieved one of the highest levels of financial inclusion among Southeast Asia countries due to policies taking advantage of mobile phones and banking agents to expand access.

Driving Performance from the Center: Malaysia’s Experience with PEMANDU

Highlights | Download report (pdf) 

According to a new World Bank report, Malaysia’s experience driving public sector performance through a delivery unit is a helpful case study for governments worldwide.