Malay Women’s Group Wants 50% Bumiputera Equity, Because The Non-Malay Population Is Shrinking

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Pertubuhan Negarawati Tanah Air, a Malay women’s NGO, has called on the government to raise the Bumiputera equity ownership target from 30% to 50%, citing the community’s 70.5% share of the Malaysian citizen population as justification.

The 30% target has not been met.

The call was made by the organisation’s chairman, Bibi Sunita Sakandar Khan, as part of a Budget 2027 wish-list submitted to TV Pertiwi, a Malay-language news portal.

The Bumiputera Economic Transformation Plan 2035 (PuTERA35) currently sets 30% as the equity ownership target for Bumiputera individuals and mandated agencies by 2035.

Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) data for 2025 shows Bumiputera make up 70.5% of Malaysian citizens.

Bibi Sunita, who is also a supreme council member of Parti Wawasan Negara, explained why she thinks it is reasonable.

Given that Bumiputera make up over 70% of the citizenry, it is reasonable for the government to assess whether a long-term economic aspiration above 30% is needed. We don’t wish for the 30% figure to be passed down from one generation to the next as a target that is constantly cited but never realised.

Bibi Sunita also cited wage data in her submission.

The median monthly wage for formal sector workers in March 2026 stood at RM3,027, with the bottom 10% earning RM1,700 or less.

The Comment Area Had Questions

The proposal drew criticism in the comment section — including from Malay readers.

One commenter stated that Islam emphasises economic empowerment through individual effort, not preferential intervention.

Another noted that the demand would be considered unjust if applied in reverse to non-Malay businesses.

Non-Bumiputera commenters questioned why, more than five decades after the New Economic Policy (NEP) was introduced in 1971, the target remained unmet.

One former process and quality assurance engineer said a 50% equity requirement would prompt investors and multinationals to exit Malaysia.

Others noted that the existing equity framework functions as a market entry mechanism and asked whether 69 years of independence had produced no measurable progress.

Some commenters responded to the 50% proposal with a single counter-proposal: 100%.

Bibi Sunita responded by characterising the backlash as wilful ignorance — “the gap between ethnic groups in terms of economic ownership is so glaring, yet some choose to close their eyes, ears and mouths” — without addressing why the existing 30% target remains unmet or engaging with the Islamic grounds argument raised by Malay commenters.

The Policy Behind The Number

The 30% target did not originate with PuTERA35.

It was first set in 1971, when Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak introduced the NEP in the aftermath of the 13 May 1969 racial riots.

Bumiputera corporate equity ownership stood at 2.4% at the time.

The policy gave itself 20 years — until 1990 — to reach 30%.

It did not, and by the end of the original term, the figure had climbed to between 18% and 23%, carried largely by state-linked trust agencies such as Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) and Amanah Saham Nasional (ASN).

The target has been carried forward ever since, even as the NEP recorded measurable gains elsewhere.

The absolute poverty rate in Peninsular Malaysia fell from 49.3% in 1970 to 16.5% by 1990.

University quotas, civil service employment, and targeted scholarships produced a professional Bumiputera middle class where one had not previously existed at scale.

Critics noted that the gains went mostly to a connected few, that equity quotas became a business in themselves rather than a path to ownership, and that the policy drove skilled workers out of the country while making Malaysia a harder sell to foreign investors.

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Malay Women’s Group Wants 50% Bumiputera Equity, Because The Non-Malay Population Is Shrinking
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