In a tweet today, Apurva said the gross national income (GNI) of Sarawak has exceeded the high-income threshold of US$13,205 (RM61,500).

“While Malaysia’s quest to join the high-income club continues, there is one nice surprise – Sarawak is now a high-income state.”

He said this was based on the World Bank’s conversion of the data obtained from the statistics department of Malaysia (DOSM).

Penang, and the federal territories of Kuala Lumpur and Labuan have also exceeded the high-income threshold, according to Apurva’s data.

The World Bank’s official blog divides the world’s economies into four income groups for each year – low, lower-middle, upper-middle and high – based on GNI per capita.

In the full country 2024 classification report (July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024), Malaysia is listed as an “upper-middle income economy”, along with Indonesia and China.

The GNI per capita is reported in US dollars, and the value is obtained by converting the local currency to US dollars, using the World Bank’s atlas method.

The World Bank also says that the thresholds are updated annually at the beginning of its financial year (starting July 1) and adjusted for inflation.