PUTRAJAYA, MALAYSIA: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi Wednesday (12 Mar) warned Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng not to make statements that could stoke racial tensions, Bernama reports.

Lim told reporters that the DAP-led state government would not practise the New Economic Policy, after the swearingin ceremong.

Lim had also said that the NEP, which was introduced in 1971 after the 13 May 1969, racial riots to eradicate poverty and restructure society, was the source of "cronyism, corruption and inefficiency.

Abdullah told Bernama in between meetings with top civil servants at his office here that the NEP, introduced by the late Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, the countrys second prime minister, had in fact succeeded in increasing the size of the economic pie and had benefited everyone.

"I would like to ask the DAP which community has been made poorer because of the NEP" he said.