Jomo, an adviser at Khazanah Research Institute, expressed confidence that by doing so, Malaysia can crawl out of the middle-income trap, where middle-income nations fail to move up to high-income status.

“We have imported a lot of (economic) narratives from the US and Switzerland because that’s the fashionable thing to do.

“But we need to do away with all that, study and recognise our problems, and find ways to overcome them,” he said at the launch of the book “Anwar Ibrahim: Tenacious in Dissent, Hopeful in Power”.

Jomo said Malaysia’s current tax system was inherited from the British colonial period, adding that the system benefits the rich and was “regressive” in nature.

“That old model where you do not tax wealth and income served colonial interests, it has not changed until today, which is why our tax model is regressive. It should be more progressive, distributing (tax revenue gained) from the rich to the poor.

“We need to begin to think about the kinds of policies that will work best in complex situations and we cannot underestimate the complexity of Malaysian society,” he added.

The economist also expressed disappointment with the unity government’s last two federal budgets, saying they were not progressive but regressive.

“Spending a lot of time to identify if a person really belongs to the B40 group or not is a waste of time. We should be more universal in our government aid and policy.”

He called on Putrajaya to implement more comprehensive policies that would yield maximum effects, saying the government tends to focus on one particular sector of targeted groups but the results “turn out to be quite small”.