Najib shares Malaysia's secret in reducing poverty, fighting unemployment

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak in sharing the success story indicated that the government also stressed on the fact that the growth is associated with justice.

"We made sure to balance so that everyone can benefit from it without marginalising any citizen.

"This is the philosophy that we believe in and we embody with effective measures and programmes, and you can see the significant reduction of poverty in Malaysia and increase in income to unprecedented levels," he said.

He said this in an exclusive interview with Al Arabiya News Channel in conjunction with Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud's recent historical visit to Malaysia.

Najib noted that the percentage of poverty rate dropped to "a very low 0.6 per cent" in 2015 as compared to above 60 per cent ratio, recorded when Malaysia gained independence in 1957.

Meanwhile, on Malaysia's success in tackling unemployment, Najib said the government policies which enabled the private sector to become the engine of growth and coupled with direct foreign investments had lead to the creation of new job opportunies.

"The public sector was dominant in the past but through the process of transformation that we've made and the policies that we carried out as part of the transition plan since 2009, the private sector became the engine of growth today," he said.

The Prime Minister said he also stressed the need for creation of jobs with high salaries to allow the owners to enjoy a high level of income.

"We did not have the desire to create jobs requiring low skills, because it means a low level of income.