This was “the biggest economic stimulus initiative Malaysia has ever taken,” which, when tax cuts and guarantees were included, amounted to 9 percent of GDP.16 It was marketed as a major step toward rejuvenating the New Economic Model, which had supposedly guided Malaysia’s development since independence. Fueled by foreign investment and the petrochemical boom, Malaysia hoped to catapult to the status of a fully developed economy on a par with Singapore, its enviable neighbor. There were tax cuts and reductions in interest rates by the central bank, but the main drivers of the program were the
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