PETALING JAYA: Sarawak, the land of the hornbills and blessed with natural resources in abundance, is now a high-income state, according to World Bank economist Apurva Sanghi.
Free Malaysia Today (FMT) quoted Apurva in a Tweet as saying that the gross national income (GNI) of the Borneo state has exceeded the high-income threshold of US$13,205 (RM61,500).
“While Malaysia’s quest to join the high-income club continues, there is one nice surprise – Sarawak is now a high-income state.”
He said this was based on the World Bank’s conversion of the data obtained from the statistics department of Malaysia (DOSM).
Apart from Sarawak, Apurva said that Penang, Kuala Lumpur and Labuan have also exceeded the high-income threshold.
The world’s economies are divided into four income groups for each year - low, lower-middle, upper-middle and high, based on GNI per capita.
On a good note, Malaysia is listed as an ‘upper-middle income economy,’ along with Indonesia and China, according to data in the full country 2024 classification report (July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024).
