Thursday, September 06, 2007

Malays Calling for Changes to NEP?

Read opinions from two persons who are well respected in their respective field.

* Tun Musa Hitam, one of the former prime ministers and former chairman of the Malaysian Human Rights Commission.

* Nazir Razak, the CIMB group chief executive and the younger brother of the current deputy prime minister.

Both of them called for a review on the New Economic Policy that guarantees the 30% interest for the Malay race in all business sectors, deals, transactions marginalising the non-malays in Malaysia and foreigners too.

This two persons who are very familiar to the business situation in Malaysia said that with such a ruling still in place, foreign companies are reluctant to invest in Malaysia and rather go to neighbouring countries which has no restriction or not 'forced' to give away shares to people they do not know. Malaysia's Foreign Direct Investment has been on the decline and lower than our neighbouring countries. With that too, Malaysia's competitiveness cannot match the greater business environment nearby.

The NEP does not affect foreigners only but locally, it deprived the non-Malays from earning their rights to participate in business fairly. My previous postings on the local scene affecting the freight forwarders and legal firms do affect the business scenario as the best may not be involved.

Asking for such a review is not taking the privilege away but we have to look at the future. Anyway, everyone is entitled to give their comments, so I think their comments would be read once only and put aside later on.
Tags: NEP, New Economic Policy, Tun Musa Hitam, Nazir Razak, Doing Business in Malaysia, Malay

2 comments:

Convivialdingo said...

It's somewhat of a double-edged sword really. Foreign investors would have no problem pulling large chunks of investment out of Malaysia if any crisis were to appear.

On the other hand Malaysians are a savvy group and could probably avoid such situations.

American investment groups are very domineering and have no loyalty - we've seen this in Honduras, India, Costa Rica, and other countries where investment pours in until a better deal comes along.

As an American I would be happier if other countries were more interested in Fair trade systems with us - whereby growth and industry were based on the exchange of goods rather than credit or currency.

I don't think the US is bad in this regard - in general trade has been beneficial for most countries we trade with - but there are some embarrassments as well.

Johnny Ong said...

The FTA between USA and Malaysia has been delayed for quite some practically due to the NEP

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