THE MAKING OF THE Ninth Malaysia Plan.

(From New Straits Times (Malaysia))

THE details of the Ninth Malaysia Plan, tabled in Parliament today, are mapped out over 559 pages, less than the previous plan, and presented unlike previous plans that had followed the same format since the beginning of Malaysia as an independent nation.

Times have changed; the challenges of today's world are not the same as that of the past; hence, there had to be new sectors to look at, new strategies to achieve success in these sectors. It was a plan that was more than one year in the making, with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi playing the role of chief architect and chief co-ordinator.

From the beginning, in huddled sessions with his deputy Datuk Seri Najib Razak, Second …