The World Bank has a long-standing relationship in Malaysia since its independence. Our partnership has evolved from development financing from the 1950s to the 1990s to leveraging the Bank’s knowledge and research in it’s current form of collaboration. In 2015, the Government invited the World Bank to open an office in Kuala Lumpur with a 5-year partnership under the Office Support Agreement (OSA) focused on disseminating Malaysia’s development experiences and policy innovations for the benefit of other countries; conducting original economic research; and sharing global experience and expertise in support of Malaysia’s development priorities. Today, the World Bank brands itself as an Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Finance Hub – reflecting the development ambitions of Malaysia to achieve inclusive growth, greater shared prosperity and developed nation status; and to retain its global leadership role in the area of sustainable finance.
As Malaysia is projected to transition into a high-income economy in the next few years, ensuring sustainable and inclusive growth will be policy areas. In supporting the country’s shared prosperity agenda, our knowledge and research work encompassed areas of growth and inclusion, private sector competitiveness, and human capital development.
Sustainable finance has become an increasingly important tool to support Malaysia’s vision of shared prosperity while achieving sustainable development. Working with stakeholders, the World Bank continues its knowledge, technical assistance and research towards developing a sustainable, inclusive and resilient financial sector.
Countries with strong institutions are more resilient, facilitate private sector growth, reduce poverty, deliver high-quality services, and earn the confidence of its citizens. Working towards enhancing these outcomes for Malaysia, we have continued developing new measures to improve public sector productivity, improve planning and fiscal management, and enhancing transparency in government institutions and operations.
