Government data suggests that public perception on growing income inequality is inaccurate, an economist said.

Lee Hwok-Aun of Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asean Studies said while there is a perception of widening income gap among Malaysians, data from the government's Household Income Survey appears to suggest otherwise.

This begs the question of why the government is providing various one-off assistance policies for the bottom 40 percent, including the Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia cash reward.

"Is the government disbelieving its own statistics? I will leave that as a question," Lee said at the 'Malaysian Capitalism in Comparative Perspetcive' at Mercu UEM, Kuala Lumpur, today.

"No one is doing very well to actual explain why inequality have been declining," he added.

The panel session is part of a two-day conference jointly organised by Khazanah Research Institute, the Embassy of France in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia France University Centre and Institut Francais.

Lee said the Department of Statistic's survey among Malaysian households records a declining rate of inequality over the past decade.

"The perception of income disparity could come from the differences in factors like wealth," Lee said.

He added the Gini co-efficient for Malaysia has been on a consistent downward trend for the past 20 years, with the lowest recorded in 2014.

The Gini coefficient is a measure of statistical dispersion intended to represent the income distribution of a nation's population and reflecting its level of inequality.

Despite the encouraging figures, Lee noted that the government have done little to promote their success at reducing the income gap.

Concentration of wealth within top 10 percent

However, data from Employers Provident Fund (EPF) and the sale of high-end cars do show growing concentration of wealth within the top 10 percent, he said.

This, he said, could be the the source of public perception of growing inequality.

He added that while the Household Income Survey is currently the most authoritative indicator on Malaysian household incomes, its data sets are not publicly available.

This means further studies were done based on other similar sources.