This 15 kilometre wide corridor stretches from the centre of Kuala Lumpur to Cyberjaya, a newly established 'city' approximately 40 kilometres to the south, and is designed to incubate high technology companies. The shift to the k-economy is part of a wider plan to achieve fully developed country status by 2020. Dr Mahathir has long argued that this will not be achieved by imitating developed economies, insisting that Malaysia will retain social and economic values consistent with the desires of the Malaysian people. However, unlike Malaysia's previous periods of economic transition, such as the New Economic Policy of the early 1970s that incorporated affirmative action for ethnic Malays into a program of industrialisation, this current transition may prove politically more difficult for the Government. It is a transition that would appear to offer little to rural Malays and the urban working classes, whose support for UMNO, Mahathir's Malay-based party, has declined in the past two elections.
Concern regarding loss of electoral support is reflected in particular k-economy policies.
Internet access is provided by TMNet, part of Telekom Malaysia Bhd, another government-owned corporation. This initiative supports the longer term plan to link 25 per cent of the population to the Internet by 2005. Ethnic Malays are more likely to live in rural and regional areas than people from the Chinese or Indian minorities. Earlier analyses of the impact of the 'information economy' suggested that authoritarian regimes should fear the emergence of a well educated populace with international networks and high status occupations. Higher living standards and education levels were linked with demands for democracy.