Gentlemen, welcome to 1AcronymMalaysia
September 24, 2010
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/opin ... nmalaysia/SEPT 24 — In case you are left puzzled by the title of this article, do not adjust your screen.
It simply is the combination of the various acronyms which our government has conjured in the past year or so in order to identify the various transformational methodology which will be relied on to propel Malaysia into a high income nation by year 2020.
They are:
* GTP - Government Transformation Programme
* 10MP - the 10th Malaysia Plan (10MP)
* ETP - the Economic Transformation Programme
* NKRA - the National Key Result Areas
* NKEA - the National Key Economic Areas
* NEM - the New Economic Model, and
* SRI - the Strategic Reform Initiatives
Note: Susu1Malaysia is not included, just in case you are wonderBra... sorry, wondering.
Basically, the plan is to steroid-drive the Malaysian economy by inundating it with mega projects which are projected to increase Gross National Income (GNI) per capita income from RM20,770 (US$6,700) to at least RM46,500 (US$15,000), meeting the World Bank’s high-income benchmark by 2020. By doing that, it is hoped that Malaysia would triple its GNI from RM660 billion (2009) to RM1.7 trillion in 2020.
To do that, Malaysia would need to sustain a six per cent GNI growth between 2011 and 2020 and a total funding of over RM1.4 trillion, much of it would apparently come from the private sector.
Following are the key sectors:
* OIL AND GAS: It will see investments of RM218 billion over the next 10 years, starting with liquefied natural gas facilities in peninsular Malaysia by 2013. A 10-million tonne regional oil storage hub will be built in Johor state, next to Singapore, by 2015 to turn Malaysia-Singapore into an Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp type hub.
By 2017, Malaysia will be the number one oil services hub in Asia and by 2020, there will be five GigaWatts (GW) of hydro capacity, 1.25GW of solar and a nuclear plant.
* PALM OIL: It will see investments worth RM124 billion by 2020. This will help boost fresh fruit bunch yields to 23 per cent from 20.5 per cent and there will be a move into oleochemicals and more downstream industry. This will be led by Sime Darby, IOI, Kuala Lumpur Kepong and state plantations agency Felda.
* FINANCIAL SERVICES: This will see investments worth RM211 billion, mainly through leveraging Malaysia’s lead in Islamic finance to target markets like Turkey, Indonesia and Egypt.
* KUALA LUMPUR: The city will see investments worth RM172 billion, mainly in the Kuala Lumpur Mass Transit which includes 141km of tunnels built in the largest infrastructure project in Malaysia.
* TOURISM: It will see investments worth RM204 billion with plans to join up Kuala Lumpur’s shopping malls in an Singapore “Orchard Road†type development using walkways. There will be a “Malaysia Truly Asia†cultural centre to pull in the tourist dollar with “Broadway quality†traditional song and dance.
* ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS: It will see investments worth RM78 billion. Malaysia plans to become the world’s second largest solar panel maker by 2020 and to boost semiconductors, LEDs and industrial electronics.
* AGRICULTURE requires RM22 billion in investments.
* HEALTH will see RM23 billion of investments and will see a Kuala Lumpur suburb become a “health metropolis.â€
* RETAIL AND WHOLESALE will see investments of RM255 billion.
* CREATIVE INDUSTRIES will add RM51 billion in investments.
* EDUCATION will see RM20 billion in investments.
* BUSINESS SERVICES will see RM41 billion invested.
Nice.
I note, however, that amidst the billions which are to be spent for electronics, transportation, financial centres and whatever, only RM23 billion is to be spent for health services. And education will only see a RM20 billion spending. Agriculture, the bedrock of our rural socio-economic scene, in turn would only see RM22 billion of “investmentâ€.
Hell, even “creative industries†— the LimKokWing-naisation of the nation — would get RM51 billion worth of investments, more than double the amount of each of the “neglected sectors.â€
That screams of major imbalances in our socio-economic engineering (or re-engineering) processes.
Whatever happened to organic growth — as opposed to the turbo-charging or steroid-driven growth? Everybody knows, I presume, the negative impacts of steroid, no? Just look at Chris Benoit’s out-of-proportion body and the resultant murder-suicide of himself, his son and wife. Yes. That’s the problem with steroids. As for turbo charging, suffice to say that if a host of things are not upgraded in line with the turbo-charging needs, the engine would eventually explode.
Economically we have seen steroid-driven projects fail. Take Proton for example.
When Malaysia embarked on this ambitious project, it had absolutely no industrial culture. Malaysia, at that time, had not even learned to make a sewing machine. But Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad thought he could pump up the industrialisation of Malaysia by jumping into car manufacturing.
The result is for all to see. Mitsubishi, the technological partner, used Proton to dump its four-cylinder carburettor engine (the then outdated Magma engine) for the Saga when in fact every manufacturer was jumping for multi-valve fuel injection engines during the time. That prompted Dr Mahathir to say that the technological transfer was taking more time than expected.
Duties and taxes on non-national cars were increased so that Proton could survive. That continues till today. Had that been taken away, who would buy a Gen-2 or whatever as opposed to a Honda City, Toyota Vios or even a second-hand BMW 3 Series?
The same was done in the steel industry, by the introduction of Perwaja. Hundreds of millions of ringgit were spent and when the steel was finally rolled out, it was below acceptable quality. And the rest, as they say, is history. And history in Malaysia is only good for the archives. Not to be analysed and learnt from.
The thing is, Malaysia had no notable industrial culture. One cannot start a culture by simply cutting a pink ribbon to a large industrial factory or plant. The support industries must be there. The whole infrastructure must be there. The human resources must be there. The experience from being knocked down and learning the hard way must be there. The whole networking must be there.
Take the Sepang F1 circuit for example. I remember when it was first opened, it was hoped that the circuit would be the catalyst for Malaysia to produce world-class drivers. Eleven years on, where are our world-class drivers?
One does not create world-class drivers by having a world-class circuit. Where is the racing culture in Malaysia, other than the rempit culture on the streets? The Sepang Circuit’s premier “local†race, namely, the Merdeka Endurance race, managed to attract 38 entries this year. In the meantime, smaller teams in the lower classes, which consist of Proton Satrias, Honda Civics and the likes, are pushed to a different race because they are simply not fit to race with the “orang kaya†teams.
This was done by forgetting that it was the smaller teams which drove the Merdeka Endurance race to success between 2003-2007.
Whenever Malaysia unveils an economic plan, scant regard is paid to the human factor. We only focus on the money factor and almost nothing else.
Among the 12 identified sectors, all, except for two or three sectors, are concentrated in the towns. Are there more towns than rural areas in Malaysia? Rural people are not entitled to earn US$15,000 per annum, eh?
What about the human factor? None is projected for human development and human resource development other than the scant RM20 billion provided for the education sector.
The honourable prime minister has been loudly proclaiming that that Malaysia should be a fair and just society. What steps are being taken to achieve this goal?
What happened to the promise to review the ISA, for example? Why are we banning cartoon books? Why are we still whacking people carrying candles with batons? Why are the police still investigating frivolous police reports lodged against people who are trying to engage in healthy public dialogues on issues affecting the society? Why are people being unnecessarily harassed for trying to be heard?
What is to be done about extremism? I know, we are supposed to fight it, according to the honourable prime minister, but are we really fighting it? Well, kudos to the police for coming down hard on that moron Namewee. But what the heck has happened to the super duper investigations on Siti Inshah and the other headmaster in Kedah?
What about serious corruption?
The pursuit of a fair and just society would remain fruitless without the infusion and continuous practice of equity, not only in socio-economics, but also the political aspects of the society. Apart from that, democracy and independence from Western colonisation would absolutely be worthless if no viable process is taken to fill them with the emancipation of the people.
Emancipation comes with knowledge. And what knowledge will see the light of day if the society is blinkered and shielded away from the truth and prevented from a civil discourse of matters which affect the society at large?
* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.