Regional development strategy and demography structural change: A lesson from Malaysia experiences

• Main Author: Salleh, Dani
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2002
• Subjects: HD28 Management. Industrial Management
• Online Access: http://repo.uum.edu.my/9550/1/paper273.pdf; http://repo.uum.edu.my/9550/; http://iceb.nccu.edu.tw/proceedings/APDSI/2002/
• Institution: Universiti Utara Malaysia

Cities and urban centres throughout Malaysia continue to grow beyond their present boundries as population and development activities continue to increase. Such scenario can have several negative consequences, if urban centres are allowed to grow haphazardly without the benefit of proper planning. Malaysia experienced a rapid population growth in the seventies with the introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP), that policy which have two pronged strategy to eradicate poverty problem and restructure society had been specially designed to correct the socio-economic imbalance within the major racial ethnics in the country and to speed up national economic growth of the country and as a result of this scenario, the impact of the population pressure result from migration process was a major factor for concern because the increase was much faster than the pace of economic development. To cope with the exceptionally rapid population increase, a decentralisation policy was introduced and adopted. The policy actually let to the establishment of new township centres decentralised. Through the introduction of regional development strategy, the implementation of the dispersal strategy through this strategy has not been fully satisfactory although the migration level into the centres has been reduced. The degree of the development of the new townships in regional development areas have not grown to the level as they were planned to be achieved. We cannot run away from the fact that our urban centres metropolitant area will undergo dramatic changes due to a rapid urbanisation and advancement in development of economic and new invention in communication technology.With perhaps greater challenges and more complex problems to be encountered than we have ever experienced before.The introduction of the new and effective development strategy therefore needed to meet these new challenges.By recognising the spatial effects of economic and social policies, urban development strategy tend to provides the framework for integrated planning of urban growth and effective management or urban and regional planning process.So in order to fulfill the theme of conference, the scope of discussion of this paper will be focused on, namely i).Regional promotion strategy to balance the regional development; ii).Strategy of efficient and well-managed urban centres through comprehensive urban development planning; iii).Development of special feature towns; and iv).Promotion of dynamic private sector participation.