Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on Friday outlined key points for the next five-year national development.

With the vision of turning Malaysia into a developed nation by the year 2020, the Ninth Malaysia Plan (2006-2010) will be the first of the three five-year plans to achieve the glorious aspiration, said Badawi in his report presented at the parliament here.

In the 2006-2010 period, the country will try to move the economy up the value chain, to enhance the national capacity for knowledge as well as innovation and nurture "first class mentality ",to address social-economic inequalities constructively and productively, to improve life standard and to make governmental institutions more efficient, said the plan.

To upgrade the economy, the government will make efforts to improve the value added of manufacturing, services and agriculture sectors, said the report, adding the government will create new sources of wealth in technology and knowledge-intensive sectors and give a leading role to the private sector.

To enhance the national capacity for knowledge, the government will strive to improve the education system at all levels and enable more people to have access to high quality education.

The government will take more effective measures to bridge social-economic gap, beefing up efforts to eradicate poverty, reduce disparity among people in terms of income and job opportunities and narrow regional development gap.

In a bid to improve people's life, the government will upgrade public transportation, improve efficiency of energy supply and provide more affordable houses for people in both urban and rural areas.

Finally, the government will speed up efforts to fight corruption, improve the service delivery system and introduce new measures to make the government's administration more transparent, said the report.

With theme of "Together Towards Glory, Excellence and Distinction", the much-anticipated national plan came to surface after more than one year of preparation.

Source: Xinhua