Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak has urged Malaysians to emulate the "hunger for success" displayed by the people of China, following his recent state visit to the country.

Najib said China's high population drives its people to want to succeed in life, for fear of losing out to their peers.

"I just came back from China and from what I saw of the situation there, I can conclude that with a population of 1.3 billion, to succeed there, as the Westerners say, you must be hungry for success.

"Which means that we must be hungry for success, or that we must have the will and desire to succeed.

"But if we are too comfortable where we are, if we are too easygoing... in China if you do not have the will and desire you will lose out to the rest of the 1.3 billion people born there," Najib said in a speech in Shah Alam today.

He said this while closing the National Convention on Racial Unity held at the Universiti Teknologi Mara.

Use of online system

Najib also related how China was making use of the online system for its dealings such as providing micro credit.

"China possessed a system where if we want to apply for a loan online, there is big data where our spending and income information for a number of years already in the system.

"The computer and software can evaluate whether we will be a good lender or not and this only takes three minutes.

"It's called the '310' system where the processing takes three minutes, the transfer takes one minute and there is zero human interaction," he said.

During the talk, Najib elaborated on his Transformasi Nasional 2050 (TN50) which he said will mould characters capable of taking on the world.

"When we create TN50, we create more global players," he said.