Malaysia holds Vision 2020

Malaysia holds Vision 2020

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters): Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Saturday the country's aim of becoming fully developed by 2020 was still intact despite the current recession, the national Bernama news agency said.

"Although efforts to attain Vision 2020 may be slowed down due to the uncontrollable nature of recent events, our vision to attain a developed country status by 2020 remains intact," the national Bernama news agency quoted Mahathir as saying.

Mahathir said last week he expects Malaysia's economy to contract by six percent in 1998, the first recession in 13 years, then have modest growth of one percent in 1999.

He said Malaysia's high-technology Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) would help to act as the country's new growth engine after the contribution that manufacturing made to gross domestic product peaked at 38 percent in 2005.

The MSC is a 15 km by 50 km (nine miles by 30 miles) zone south of the capital Kuala Lumpur aimed at developing information-based products and solutions.