Okay, this comes directly from our current Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng. So, this is definitely true. He said that Malaysia’s economic indicators are very encouraging. He pointed out that Malaysia’s foreign direct investment (FDI) increased 250 percent to RM49 billion in the first nine month of 2018 while exports rose to a record RM94.4 billion. Article in NST here. Besides that, inflation was at a low 1.2 percent in the first nine months of 2018. He said, “We must bear in mind that the global economy situation is facing more severe challenges compared with those faced by us in Malaysia; therefore, we are convinced that if the rakyat are united, regardless of race, religion or background, we will be strong and stable as a nation in overcoming all future economic challenges.
Everyone has their 2019 wish for the government? Here’s mine. My personal wish for 2019 is that FDI for 2019 to increase by just 100% over 2018’s numbers. Hopefully someone in all the right ministries are looking at this and putting this into their KPIs. Second wish is for exports to hit a new record high. This requires a lot more effort of signing trade agreements, of finding new markets for Malaysian goods as well as to push the SMEs to the fore by equipping them and let them compete against the world too.
Third wish is of course for inflation to remain low which will usually be taken care by a negative sentiment. It’s always a chicken and egg situation. When sentiment is positive, economic does extremely well, the demand for all goods go up and well, prices will follow up too. At those times, it’s hard to tame the inflation. When times are not too positive (like now) and sentiment is not too positive (like now), the demand for all goods go down and well, the prices of goods tend to go down as traders want to attract more buyers. So, my wish is for the sentiment to start turning positive but for everyone to only buy if the price is right. This will ensure inflation does not spiral out of control. Happy understanding.
written on 2 Jan 2019
Next suggested article: What happens to the property market when the inflation is 1% every year.
