15 July 2019 (The Star Online) KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s tremendous social and economic transformation journey since the 1847 Pangkor Treaty has been captured in Sultan of Perak Sultan Nazrin Muizzuddin Shah’s latest book.

Titled Striving for Inclusive Development: From Pangkor to a Modern Malaysian State, the book takes readers on a journey from the British colonial administration that established economic structures to the creation of the nation’s sustained rapid economic growth in the post-independence decades.

The book also builds on the analysis of the country’s past and proposes forward-looking assessments of challenges, and sets out the Sultan of Perak’s vision for an inclusive and sustainable future.

The book is part of the Perak Ruler’s long-standing project on the economy and the country’s history.

He has also established the Economic History of Malaya Project, which can be accessed at www.ehm.my.

Sultan Nazrin is the Chancellor of Universiti Malaya, and Honorary Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford and of Magdalene College and St Edmund’s College, both Cambridge colleges.

At the book launch yesterday, University of Cambridge’s Centre of Development Studies director Dr Ha-joon Chang said as Malaysia charts forward to become a developed nation, more proactive policies are needed to face various challenges ahead.

He said it was important to recognise that various institutions and policies in Malaysia needed to change according to time.

“Malaysia needs more proactive policies to operate its economy.

“Because frankly, in the last 10 to 15 years, it has been somehow stuck in things it had been successful for.

“But now there are great challenges – the rise of China, climate change – and the country really needs to think hard as to its future direction.

“The book will be a great guide to that process,” he said.

Chang said the efforts that needed continuous improvement included education, the business environment and taking care of the environment.

“Malaysia has achieved quite a lot since its independence. It started with a very imbalanced economy, based on its colonial structure.

“However, the country has transformed itself into a diversified economy and leads in certain areas like palm oil and so on,” added the South Korean institutional economist.

Emeritus professor Peter Drake from Australia said the Sultan of Perak’s new book deals with various issues in great detail, including population, migration, human capital, health, education, agricultural development, poverty reduction, inequality of income and consumption.

Read more at https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2019/07/15/capturing-malaysias-transformation/#uypraJhobwIHE8pY.99