Globalising Kuala Lumpur and the Strategic Role of the Producer Services Sector

Abstract

In the context of the international economy of the late 1970s, the Kuala Lumpur Structure Plan (1984) noted that the city's role as the commercial and financial centre of Malaysia would be maintained and enhanced. With intensifying globalisation processes in the 1990s and the coming of the new millennium, fresh approaches and innovative strategies relating to further tertiarisation in the urban economy have to be instituted. The paper argues that this sector has not yet distinctly disarticulated from that of goods production in or beyond the city limits. This raises a serious question whether producer services could support Kuala Lumpur's quest for 'world city' status by the year 2020.