The reopening and recovery of the economic sector has led the incidence of poverty in Malaysia to decrease to 6.2 percent in 2022, from 8.2 percent in 2021, official data showed Friday.
The Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) said in a statement that the incidence of poverty in Malaysia rose to 8.4 percent in 2020 and 8.2 percent in 2021 from 5.6 percent in 2019 as the spread of COVID-19 has hit the country and the whole world.
Meanwhile, the incidence of poverty among Bumiputera increased to 7.9 percent in 2022 from 7.2 percent in 2019.
The relative poverty threshold in 2022 was 3,169 ringgit (697 U.S. dollars) as compared to 2,937 ringgit in 2019, with a rate of 16.6 percent, a slight decline from 16.9 percent in 2019. (1 ringgit equals 0.22 U.S. dollar)