Monday, October 13, 2008

Malaysian Economy

The Parliament convened today after the Puasa and Hari Raya holiday. And today will see the debate on the National 2009 Budget tabled by Pak Lah before the Parliament was adjourned but now Najib will take the role of Finance Minister. It would be a very awkward position for Najib, instead he should have asked for time to revamp the Budget to suit his administration and also to integrate recent developments of the global economy.

Najib should not have been harping around that Malaysian economy is sound and strong without any backing up of facts or any promise to study the impact of the economic turmoil in US and the United kingdom.

Directly, Malaysia will not have any substantial impact due to the non-involvement of our local banks with the US Subprime issues. But any meltdown in US will indirectly impact our trade especially US is our major export market. Some may argue we had reduced the US dependency and export more to Asean Nation, but my dear readers, the bulk of our exports to Singapore is actually a rewrapping, reboxing of our product to the US. Even our trade with China and Japan will end up in the US soil and traded in US dollars.

Singapore is the first Asian nation to announced economic recession. Largely they are very dependent on their US trade partners, the bulk of export is to US. And without any natural resources, Singapore depend largely on their Asean friends for raw materials and manufacturing industries.

A slowdown in US economy; subprime crisis: housebuyers unable to service their debts, credit crunch: investment houses involved in the subprime investment are suffering and requires high injections while Lehman Brothers gone broke. Firms that previously known with capitals many times larger than Malaysian external reserves are suffering huge losses and in dire need of new capital injections.

Najib should take precaution of this situation.

Bursa Malaysia suffers a huge meltdown, now the composite index falling way below 1000 levels where it had revel early of the year. All the other global exchanges had dipped very, very low, while Bursa was very laggard mainly due to its illiquid position, or else many Malaysian would have again suffered like in 1996-1997 meltdown.

We are the major exporter of semiconductors, electrical and electronic product to US, the slowdown of the industry in US will definitely impact our export figures.

The high flying commodity prices; oil, palm oil and rubber are showing signs of slowing down. Another setback to our export figure.

On the other hand imports will be more expensive as price of rice remain high and the inflationary pressure suffered by our trading partners and neighbouring nation.

We need somebody who is very strong in economic background to advise the government. Even if Najib truly an economic graduate, I don't think he has the experience as he was roped into politic immediately after graduation when his father passed away. May I suggest an Economic panel comprising of high profile economist in the nation and no cronies please.

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