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Wealth and National Well-Being

Country Comparisons:
2010: see chart (top)

World Factbook (2009): "Malaysia, a middle-income country, has transformed itself since the 1970s from a producer of raw materials into an emerging multi-sector economise central bank maintains healthy foreign exchange reserves and the regulatory regime has limited Malaysia's exposure to riskier financial instruments and the global financial crisis."

The World Factbook has described Malaysia as having "Healthy foreign exchange reserves, low inflation, and a small external debt are all strengths that make it unlikely that Malaysia will experience a financial crisis similar to the one in 1997."

Unemployment
2010: 3.5%
2009: 3.7%

Public debt
2010: 53.1%

Budget
2010: revenues $46.78 billion, 100.95% of expenditures ($46.34 billion), 11.22% of GDP.

2010: Exports in cash value well exceed imports.

Exports electronic equipment, petroleum and liquefied natural gas, wood and wood products, palm oil, rubber, textiles, chemicals.

Military expenditures as a percentage of GDP
2005: 2.03%

People

Living in an urban area
2010: 72%
2008: 70%

Density for 2005: 73 persons per square kilometer.

Ethnicities
2004: Malay 50.4%, Chinese 23.7%, indigenous 11%, Indian 7.1%, others 7.8%

Religions
2000 census: Muslim 60.4%, Buddhist 19.2%, Christian 9.1%, Hindu 6.3%, Confucianism, Taoism, other traditional Chinese religions 2.6%, other or unknown 1.5%, none 0.8%

Geography

Southeastern Asia, bordering Thailand and Indonesia, plus one-third of the island of Borneo. Size equivalent to 574 by 574 kilometers or roughly 360 by 360 miles.

Government

Constitutional monarchy, a sultan as the chief of state, a bicameral legislature: upper house with 70 seats, 44 appointed by monarch, 26 appointed by state legislatures; lower house 219 seats with members elected by popular vote to five-year terms.

Muslims are under Sharia laws that do not apply to non-Muslims -- laws on adultery, for example.

Capital: Kuala Lumpur

Recent History

Independence from Britain in 1957.

2005: "Piracy remains a problem in the Malacca Strait.

March 2005: Freedom of the press is threatened as a reporter, Fasli Ahmad, 31, for a privately owned broadcaster is question by police for a story that exposed environmental issues in the northern state of Kedah. (From the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, March 2005)

February 2010: In Malaysia, the majority ethnic group, the Malays, are subject to Islamic law, and other ethnic groups are not. The Malays are about 50 percent of the population. What happens to an offspring of a mixed Malay and another ethnicity is to this website unknown. Or what if the one of the three Malay women caned under Islamic law had claimed that they were not Muslim? Perhaps their punishment would have been harsher.

2011: Francis Fukuyama describes Malaysia's government as enjoying popular support, although it is not a liberal democracy, because of the country's economic growth in recent years.

SOURCES:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/

Malaysia with its capital Kuala Lumper (in the west) and in northern Borneo (in the east)