In the last few years, Malaysia has emerged as one of the fastest growing economies surpassing the income per capita of other South-East Asian countries like Indonesia and Phillippines. Even during the global recession, Malaysia managed to perform far better than many other nations. The late nineties saw spectacular success of East-Asian economies by the forces of liberalization and globalization and Malaysia became one of the 'miracle' and 'tiger' economies witnessing almost meteoric growth and development. Malaysia followed an open economic regime with foreign direct investment playing a crucial
role in exports and output growth.