Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Malaysia's looming Economic Melt Down

Despite Malaysia's pretty economic growth over this past few months, something just doesn't seem to be right. It is almost as if the Gdp growth figures were manipulated or spiced up.
Well , it wasn't.
Contrary to popular believe, the government does not really jack up economic figures. It just found clever ways of spice up growth.
That's all.
Lets use last year as an example.
Mr Abdullah found out that economic figures were not good , and it couldn't be at a worse time. Elections were just around the corner and he didn't want the economy to appear weak. So he did something very clever, increase the wages of civil servants. This of course leads to higher spending. And as we know, spending helps boost the economy.
I am not saying that civil servants do not deserve a pay rise. But the reasons on why it was done couldn't be any worse.
Yes, Malaysia is actually a failing economy. China and India are fast replacing Malaysia as the manufacturing power houses. 50% of Malaysia's Gdp comes from the manufacturing sector.
If oil & palm oil prices did not increase last year by a mile, Malaysia would have registered economic growth of somewhere near 3.5%. This is a measly figure for a developing country.
By 2014, Malaysia will no longer be a net exporter of oil. In turn, this translates to losses for every cent oil prices go up.
To achieve developed status by 2020, Malaysia should have registered at least 8% economic growth annually since 1995. (a developed country should have Purchasing Power Parity of at least $25,000, and GDP per capita should be close to PPP figures.)
Right now, Malaysia has PPP of $14,700 and a GDP per capita of $6500.
We have only done an average of 5% increase in gdp growth from 1995- 2007. So vision 2020 will not be achieved, despite what the government might claim.

Furthermore, for Malaysia to move up the value chain, (I define this as a country that is able to innovate and produce high quality products-eg. companies such as Samsung, Lg from Korea) large amounts of Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) are needed. To show you how low our FDI's are, Malaysia has a pathetic $7Billion of FDI's annually, while Singapore, a country 100 times smaller then Malaysia, Has FDI's of $55Billion annually.

Last year, nearly 50% of our FDI's went into Iskandar development region. This in my opinion, is a project bound to be a major failure. When Singaporeans were invited to invest, they did. But when they started to invest, our smart politicians say that they will chase the Malays out to the jungles.

To summarize everything up,
1. Malaysia's economic growth is now based on Oil and palm oil prices.
(Malaysia will soon be a net importer of oil, and palm oil prices have reached its peak, meaning it will be down hill from here on)
2. Malaysia's manufacturing sector is shrinking, thus unemployment rates will go up.
3. Immigrants imported from Indonesia, Philippines are causing wages to remain stagnant.
4. Malaysia is suffering from a brain drain. No qualified professionals want to work in Malaysia anymore.
5. All the peoples tax money are being used in stupid subsidies and unnecessary 'Mega projects'.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

omg gerard.

Gerard said...

omg Miss chong.