The New Economic Policy (NEP) will continue until the agenda to achieve national unity is realised, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.

Lau Yeng Peng (BN-Puchong) asked the Prime Minister's Department whether such affirmative action policies are compatible with the country's open market policy.

Answering on behalf of the Prime Minister's Department, Foreign Ministry parliamentary secretary Ahmad Shabery Cheek, in a written reply, said the policies will not stop until several issues are addressed.

"So long as there is unequal distribution of wealth between the races [...] that's how long we need an agenda to ensure balance participation between the races so that wealth is distributed equally and fairly.

"What is most important is to achieve national unity," he told his BN colleague, Lau, who is a Gerakan member.

Shabery said the issues that still require attention are corporate equity ownership, the uneven distribution of professional manpower and the income disparity between the races.

"Affirmative actions are aimed to increase the economic and education standards so that bumiputeras are on par with the non-bumiputeras," he added.

Heated debates

In recent months, there have been heated debates as to whether the NEP has achieved its target.

The debates followed a study conducted by a local think-tank and another by Universiti Malaya which stated that the 30 percent bumiputera equity ownership target has been surpassed.

However, the government maintained that the target has yet to be reached despite a latest official figure having revealed that bumiputeras owned 36.64 percent share ownership on Bursa Malaysia last year.

The NEP was enacted in the 1970 as part of a bold blueprint to reduce income disparity among different ethnic groups in Malaysia.

It was given a life span of 20 years but the racially-based affirmative action policy continued after 1990 under a different name, the New Development Policy.

The government recently announced that NEP measures will remain for another 15 years until 2020.