A/HRC/44/40/Add.3 Paragraph 12 Poverty eradication programs must also reflect the fact that poverty affects all races and ethnicities. The colonial period generated sharp inequalities along racial lines and race still pervades how many people think and talk about poverty. Relative income inequality between Bumiputeras (ethnic Malays and non-Malay indigenous people) and other groups has narrowed since the adoption of the New Economic Policy in 1970. But as of 2016, Bumiputeras still had a higher poverty rate than the Chinese or Indian populations. Nevertheless, nearly six percent of Chinese households nationwide had to scrape by on less than RM2,000 (US$492) per month in 2016. And important research shows that Indians, who also suffered great exploitation during the colonial period, have not benefited from much development planning and many poverty eradication programs. Comments from the Government of Malaysia: • Based on HIES 2016, the overall incidence of poverty was 0.4% comprise of 24,700 households. Meanwhile, the incidence of poverty according ethnics are Bumiputera (0.5%), Chinese (0.11%), Indians (0.1%) and Others (1.5%). National median income in 2016 was RM5,228. In term of ethnicity, median income for Bumiputera is RM4,846, Chinese RM6,582 and Indian RM5,428 and others RM3,780. Paragraph 13 The Government should also improve access to data and other information on poverty. Its persistent refusal to provide effective access to such information, and in some cases the complete failure to even collect important data, significantly hampers research, policymaking, and poverty alleviation. Comments from the Government of Malaysia: • As Malaysia has continuously collaborated with international organisations and other statistical offices in our work against international statistical standards, Malaysia acknowledges the growing demand of data amongst policymakers and researchers, in particular, granular data with high ease of access. • In providing high-quality data, constant integrity checks are conducted at every part of the statistics released to ensure accuracy and consistency with minimum errors. To achieve this, high response rates in surveys, as well as cross-references with administrative data are important. Hence as we move forward, Malaysia had worked on many engagements with relevant agencies on data sharing and data integration. • In the meantime, Malaysia commits to providing data as requested by users, subjected to the Statistics Act 1965 whereby personal information cannot be shared with third parties. However, DOSM has a microdata policy where 100% of household dataset can be shared with government agencies, contractors appointed by government agencies. As for researchers aside from government agencies, they can obtain 30% of microdata with 100% variables or 100% of microdata with 30% variables. These microdata provided are always statistically represented at the national level. Additionally, there is a data-dissemination sub-product StatsDW MyLab where researchers can access to 100% microdata at DOSM Headquarters consisting of economic datasets, social datasets and compilation datasets. • Furthermore, Malaysia is working on amending the Statistics Act 1965 (Revised 1989) to ease data sharing without compromising privacy, as well as embarking on many initiatives to improve data quality to meet users’ demands while educating users on data usage and limitations. Malaysia also welcomes capacity building assistance in improving statistical processes towards more open and transparent data sharing. Paragraph 14 Overall, Malaysia has made immense progress on poverty alleviation, but the job remains incomplete. Under the flawed official poverty line, its national poverty rate fell from 49 percent in 1970 to 0.4 percent in 2016, but its accomplishments remain impressive even under more realistic measures. As of 2016, 95.5 percent of households had access to piped water and 99.9 percent had access to electricity. Average household income grew by 7.3 percent 7