In the speech, he emphasised his commitment to tackling poverty, restructuring Malaysian society, expanding access to quality education for all, and promoting renewed "passion for public service.
Najib announced that the liberalisation was designed to attract foreign investment, and technology to create what he termed "higher value employment opportunities," and to enhance Malaysian competitiveness.
The liberalisation included scrapping a 30 per cent Bumiputera ownership requirement for investment in some services sector to help boost the country's flagging economy, with immediate effect.
He also announced the liberalisation of rules on investment banks, insurance companies, and takaful operators, to give them the flexibility to enter into foreign strategic partnerships to enhance international linkages and business opportunities.
These additional steps were characterised by independent analysts as a significant liberalisation of previous rules designed to promote Malay control of the country's financial services sector, and as likely to strengthen Malaysia's ability to participate in global financial services developments, although some criticised Najib for not raising the foreign equity participation for the country's commercial banks beyond the existing 30%.
On 8 May 2009 it was announced by the Malaysian Home Ministry that the remaining three Hindu Rights Action Front leaders and 10 others are to be freed from detention under the Internal Security Act.
[9] Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who opposes the move, used his blog to run a poll on the government's decision where out of the 26,000 who voted, about 80 per cent said they were against the reversal.
Another poll on the issue, as part of the independent Merdeka Centre's survey on Prime Minister Najib Razak's first 100 days in office, showed that 58 per cent of the 1,060 respondents wanted the policy of teaching maths and science in English to continue.
He announced as government policy four paradigm shifts for modernising the civil service, including (1) recognition that wealth was created in the private sector, requiring government to ensure that its regulations promoted private sector capacity to generate wealth, rather than block it; (2) to move beyond evaluating success based on output to one based on outcome," he said, citing as example education where emphasis should be given not only to having enough schools and laboratories but also the overall success, including the students' welfare and morale; (3) moving from bureaucracy which made things difficult to one which made things simple and easy for the people; and (4) moving from a focus on productivity to one that combines productivity, creativity and innovation.
He promised to review any Minister who failed to meet KPI standards, which Najib said would focus on impact, rather than inputs, and outcomes, rather than outputs, to ensure effective public service delivery.
"[14] Najib's initial actions as Prime Minister focused on economic stabilisation and domestic reforms, and did not visibly change long-standing Malaysian foreign policy.
In his first months in office, Najib has left broad policy statements to his new Foreign Minister, Datuk Anifah Aman, whose initial focus has been to re-emphasise Malaysia's long-time demand that the Israeli government agree to and act on a two-state solution that creates an independent Palestine, plus a new focus on counter-proliferation, including endorsement of new policies undertaken in the United States by the Obama Administration relating to reducing existing nuclear arsenals.
In 2014, former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad withdrew his support for Najib citing, among other things, the abandonment by Chinese voters of the Barisan Nasional coalition.
[18] On July 2, 2015, The Wall Street Journal ran an exposé alleging that MYR 2.672 billion (US$700 million) had been channelled from 1MDB into Najib's personal bank accounts, triggering widespread calls for his resignation.