Malaysian language subject in primary and secondary schools. Article 152 of the Federation designates Malay as the official language. Between 1986 and 2007, the official term "Bahasa Malaysia" was replaced by ""Bahasa Melayu"". Today, to recognise that Malaysia is composed of many ethnic groups (and not only the ethnic Malays), the term "Bahasa Malaysia" has once again become the government's preferred designation for the ""Bahasa Kebangsaan"" (National Language) and the ""Bahasa Persatuan/Pemersatu"" (unifying language/lingua franca). The language is sometimes simply referred to as "BM" and often misnomered with the term "Bahasa". English continues, however, to be widely used in professional and commercial
Enabling clause Enabling clause In 1979, as part of the Tokyo Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the enabling clause was adopted in order to permit trading preferences targeted at developing and least developed countries which would otherwise violate Article I of the GATT. Paragraph 2(a) provides a legal basis for extending the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) beyond the original 10 years. In practice it gave a permanent validity to the GSP. The enabling clause permits developed countries to discriminate between different categories of trading partners (in particular, between developed, developing and least developed countries) which would