Various initiatives have been taken recently in an effort to boost Malaysia’s economy. One of them is the EPF (Employees Provident Fund) that is set to “continue investing internally” in 2016, with, according to Datuk Shahril Ridza Ridzuan, EPF CEO, an analysis on “the right assets.” Shahril said that one way of doing this is to encourage foreigners to invest in Malaysia. Indeed, Malaysia’s partners around the world have been “encouraged by the EPF to “invest jointly in Malaysia.” Vis-à-vis anticipated domestic investment allocation, this is hard to predict, as Shahril explained that “it depends on the availability of the right asset.”
Investment from local companies is crucial to spur the domestic economy given the weakened global economic condition. But local experts are optimistic. Indeed, Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, said that he was anticipating a “boost” in the economy in 2016 and that there will likely be a continued extension of governmental support from the Chinese community.
However, on the flip side, it was indicated by Datuk Wee Ka Siong, a minister in the government, that 2016 will encounter “economic challenges.” He explained that given the reality of “the global oil price slump, we will see a more challenging year ahead … we are however, hoping to achieve an increase in economic growth from 4 to 5%.” However, in this statement there was no addition of methods being used to put this in practice. Further, the sentiment was reinforced by Datuk Seri Michael Chong, of the Malaysian Chinese Association Public Services and Complaints Department, who said that there were many fiscal and social welfare issues the party needed to address.
On a related subject matter, with the recent signing of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, Malaysian companies will be eligible for the same treatment as American businesses when competing for American agency contracts. VP for Policy at the US-ASEAN Business Council, Marc Mealy explained that: “for global American companies with operations in Malaysia and Vietnam, the benefit would be that they could have the additional flexibility of supplying a US government contract from those locations.”
In addition, America will benefit from the TPP, with improved access to government contracts in those three regions. General Electric, Motorola Solutions, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems are some of the major companies that are likely to benefit from this.
So all in all, a lot is going on with regards to Malaysian economy boosting. 2016 is set to be a year of substantial potential for the region.
Asia is encouraging Donald Trump to give his support to a Beijing free trade deal with the Asia Pacific. Given that during his campaign, Trump labeled the Trans-Pacific Partnership a “disaster,” now is the time for action and a move away from Obama’s framing of the TPP resulting in an effort to write Asia’s trade rules before Beijing had the opportunity.