Malaysia Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad stated, on Thursday, that the country is headed towards becoming a high-income economy. The process may take up to two years, as he said that Malaysia has full employment at the time. ‘Based on current assessment, Malaysia will be able to achieve a high-income economy by 2021 or 2022.’ 

The IMF viewed Malaysia to be doing well in the World Economic Outlook 2019 report and noted that the per capita income is likely to rise. 

However, Dr Mahathir explained how Malaysia is being affected by the tense situation of the ongoing trade war, especially in regard to the National Entrepreneurship Policy 2030. He said, ‘For this reason, the national policy is needed and introduced at the right time, he said at the policy's launch ceremony here on Thursday.’ He added to say that the policy would help guide Malaysia to reach its entrepreneurial goals. 

During another event, Dr Mahathir showed how Malaysia had a 3.3% rate of unemployment last year, thus, ‘According to the definition given by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development [from] 1999, countries with unemployment rates below four per cent are categorised as having full employment.’