The Malaysian Insight

MALAYSIA has moved up a rung from 63 to 62 in the 2020 Human Development Index, according to the Human Development Report for this year. 

The improvement is due to an increase in average life expectancy and in gross national income per capita.

The report, launched today, detailed the progress of 189 countries and territories. 

“The country’s position is better than the previous year following the increase in average life expectancy at 76.2 years and gross national income per capita at US$27,534 (RM111,700),” said Niloy Banerjee, who is the resident representative of the United Nations Development Programme for Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. 

“Malaysia is seen as successful. The country’s position actually rose one rung from 63 last year. 

“Malaysia has also reached the 0.81 index, which puts the country’s human development at a very high level,” he said while presenting the report virtually. 

He added that between 1990 and 2019, the value of Malaysian human development index had increased by 26%, from 0.64 to 0.81. 

“When we started making data calculations in 1990, Malaysia at that time was in the index position of 0.64,” he said. 

For the same period, the life expectancy of Malaysians increased by 5.3 years, mean years of schooling increased by 3.8 years, and expected years of schooling increased by 3.9 years.

Malaysia’s gross national income per capita also increased by around 177.3% between 1990 and 2019. – December 16, 2020.