KUALA LUMPUR, April 23 — Malaysia’s top government-linked corporations (GLC) more than tripled their combined worth in the space of a decade, the Putrajaya Committee on GLC High Performance (PCG) announced today.
Through the GLC Transformation Programme, the firms dubbed G20 grew their market capitalisation by 3.2 times from RM133.8 billion to RM431.1 billion between May 2014 and April 2015.
According to the committee, the G20 has increased its international and regional presence in over 42 countries, with 34 per cent of its revenue coming from abroad, up from 28 per cent in 2004.
Despite that, the committee said that the GLCs have contributed significantly to national economy by spending RM153.9 billion in domestic investment in that period, paying out RM108.3 billion in total dividends and RM63.5 billion in total taxes.
A total of 225,050 Malaysians have also benefited from employment in 2014.
The transformation programme will officially end on July 28 this year, and a GLC Open Day will be held from August 7 to 9 this year to commemorate their “graduation”.
The G20 is a selection of large GLCs controlled by state investment funds, which are used as a gauge for overall GLC performance and include Malayan Banking Bhd, Telekom Malaysia Bhd, Tenaga Nasional Bhd, and Sime Darby Bhd.
The PCG was formed in January 2005 and is chaired by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
GLCs were established as part of the Barisan Nasional (BN) government’s affirmative action policies for Bumiputera citizens under the New Economic Policy (NEP), but its effectiveness has been questioned even by those it is meant to help ― Bumiputera entrepreneurs.
Putrajaya had in recent years sought to decrease the role of GLCs in a bid to open up the market for private investors and businesses.
In November last year, minister Datuk Seri Idris Jala claimed that the government is “making some progress” in divesting its interest in government-linked companies (GLC), with 30 out of 33 of its target companies already privatised.
Idris, who heads the Performance Management Delivery Unit (Pemandu), admitted that the progress might be slower than originally expected but said these are changes that cannot occur “overnight”.
