(Petaling Jaya, Thursday): In a Malaysiakini exclusive report entitled " Bumi equity hit NEP target 10 years ago " today, Beh LihYi reported that a university research paper has found that the 30% bumi equity ownership as targeted under the government's new Economic Policy had been achieved about 10 years ago.

Interestingly, the academic team led by Dr M Fazilah Abdul Samad had used par value of KLSE listed companies as the basis of calculation. Even so, her team has reached the conclusion that the bumi equity target under NEP  had been met by 1997.

The ground-breaking research was compiled into a 107-page report entitled 'Bumiputeras in the corporate sector: Three decades of performance 1970-2000' and was published four years ago.

Fazilah is also head of the finance and banking department at UM's business and accountancy faculty.

Her research was commissioned and published by UM's independent research unit, the Centre for Economic Development and Ethnic Relations.
 

The research, done by Universiti Malaya academician Dr M Fazilah Abdul Samad, was based on a 10-year analysis of bumiputera equity ownership between 1988 and 1997 of public listed companies on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE), now called Bursa Malaysia.

It found the 30 percent bumiputera equity ownership target was reached in 1997 when it hit 33.7 percent.

According to the 2002 study, the 33.7 percent figure was made up of bumiputera corporate equity ownership (30.6 percent) - which is equity held by bumiputera companies - and individual bumiputera share ownership ( 3.1 percent).

The remainder were held by 'others' (32 percent), those under foreign ownership (24.9 percent) and government-held ownership (9.5 percent).

However, the 'others' category consisted not just of non-bumiputera ownership but also nominee companies ownership. A nominee company's sole function is to hold shares or securities on behalf of someone else.

Many economists would argue that nominee companies are not solely under non-bumiputera ownership as a number of them are held by bumiputeras.

With this Fazilah's findings, we now have even more reasons to believe that the 45% bumi equity quoted by Asli report was correct.

We are still waiting for the Government to respond with its data and methodology to back up its claim of 18.9%.

We urge BN Government to stop extending the racial biased NEP to 2020. It's time to push the country forward with new colour-blind economic and social policies.