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Malaysia is a Southeast Asian country occupying the Malaysian Peninsula and part of the island of Borneo. Malaysia is an ethnically heterogeneous country which had the world's tenth-fastes t growing ec onomy in 1970-90. This makes it exceptional, since as a group ethnicall y heterogeneous countries were far poorer in 1990 than ethnically homogeneous countries and achieved a much lower growth rate of real per capita income in 1965-90. Ethnicall y heter ogeneous countries were underrepresented among the fastest-growing countries an d overrepresented among the countries that were unable t o raise per capita income between 1965 and 1990. Malaysia is also unusual in having attempted to reduce ethnic economic inequality by undertaking an ambitious affi rmative action program -- the New Economic Policy, or NEP -- in 1971. Targets we re set for poverty alleviation and the ethnic restructuring of employment and business ownership and control, to be achieved by 1990. As intended (but to the surprise of many), redistribution and restructuring took place in th e 1970s and 1980s within the context of economic growth.
