KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has done a relatively credible job in improving overall income disparity, with a lower Gini Coefficient than some advanced economies such as Singapore (0.458) and Hong Kong (0.539). Further, MARC also noted that Malaysia’s median and mean household incomes continued to grow, benefitting from the relatively resilient domestic economy. "To a certain extent, this can be attributed to income transfers from the government which directly benefitted the B40 income group," MARC report said. Alongside the latest release of Malaysia’s Household Expenditure survey, MARC estimates that the average monthly household excess income grew at a slower pace of 6.6% in 2016 from a cyclical high of 7.7% in 2013. Not surprisingly, private consumption growth has been subdued, averaging at 6.3% between 2014 and 2016, down from 7.5% in the preceding three-year period, MARC report said.

Source: New Strait Times October 12, 2017 13:22 UTC