May 16, Kuala Lumpur – Malaysia is gearing itself towards being a high-income economy. In a new series, iMoney considers what it means for Malaysians today and their finances. In 2010, the Malaysian government rolled out the Economic Transformation Programme to turn the country into a high-income economy by the year 2020. It is a comprehensive economic transformation plan to propel Malaysia’s economy into the high-income bracket where the programme seeks to lift the gross national income (GNI) to US$523 billion by 2020 and raise per capita income from US$6,700 to at least US$15,000. This meets the World Bank threshold for a high-income nation. Malaysia is projected to achieve the set targets if GNI grows by 6% per annum. The year 2020 is just three years away. According to Pemandu, the government arm tasked with seeing the programme through, the country is still on track.