KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 1: Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Tuesday predicted economic growth would accelerate to three percent this year after a sharp slowdown in 2001.

We believe that we may achieve a growth of 0.5 per cent to 1.0 per cent in 2001 and for 2002 there is a possibility of a growth of about 3.0 per cent, he said in a televised interview with the official Bernama news agency.

Mahathir, who is also finance minister, said the September 11 attacks on the United States had a minimal effect on the country’s goal of achieving industrialised nation status by 2020.

Maybe they have some effect but we hope that this is confined to 2001. As we already know that in 2000, we achieved better growth at more than 8.0 percent and we had hoped that we would grow in the same manner in 2001, he said.

The premier said Monday the country’s economy would enjoy stable growth in 2002 despite the woes facing its two key economic partners — the United States and Japan.

The economy will continue to strengthen even though the world economy is becoming worse due to the dampening of the US and the Japanese economy, he said in his annual New Year message.

He added that the country had succeeded in maintaining growth because it did not adhere to solutions proposed by the International Monetary Fund but decided to adopt its own approach.

Malaysia pegged the ringgit on September 1, 1998, at 3.80 ringgit to the US dollar during the middle of the Asian financial crisis and imposed selective capital controls to insulate the domestic economy from currency speculators.

The government in November cut its growth forecast for 2001 for a second time to 1.0-2.0 per cent, and has introduced a range of fiscal measures to boost consumer spending.—AFP