At least embattled Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is right about one thing. The current mess in Malaysian politics is the making of his greatest nemesis, Mahathir Mohamad, who led the Southeast Asian nation with an iron fist from 1981–2003.
Malaysian Prime Minister and Finance Minister Najib Razak face explosive allegations of embezzlement, corruption, and electoral manipulation that go to the very core of his leadership and the legitimacy of his government. United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), Najib’s political party, and Malaysia itself have been plunged into yet another crisis.
Is inequality in Malaysia going up or down? Answers differ. Official statistics unambiguously show household income inequality going down in the past decade, but almost everyone seems to think it has gone up. So what’s going on?
In 2014, Malaysia’s currency dropped to its lowest level against major currencies in over five years. Lower crude oil prices are to blame, resulting in a rapid depletion of its current account surplus. In addition, government data revealed that the value of oil reserves in Southeast Asia’s third-largest economy shriveled to an estimated 121 billion US dollars, low compared to other South East Asian oil exporting countries.
Malaysia’s government-linked companies (GLCs) are, relatively speaking, among the most extensive and powerful in the world in terms of capitalisation, market presence and socio-political mandate.
After a year of solid achievement on the economic front, Malaysia’s leaders will face difficult circumstances as they implement reform in 2015.
One of the more impressive achievements of the Malaysian government in 2014 was the resolve it demonstrated in trying to balance the budget. Prime Minister Najib Razak inherited a budget situation characterised by a lack of fiscal discipline from previous administrations, and he made a concerted effort to address this problem.
Regionalism in Asia led by global value chains (GVCs) and free trade agreements (FTAs) has increasingly put the spotlight on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). As one of Asia’s success stories in internationalization, Malaysia offers interesting insights. Drawing on research on Malaysian enterprises, this article examines the characteristics of SMEs which have successfully internationalized by participating in GVCs and FTAs and explores their policy implications.
World oil prices are falling precipitously. For an oil exporter like Malaysia, that is definitely bad news. Unless the country can diversify its economy, it may find it difficult to navigate its way through the economic challenges it faces on its way to higher income status.
The economic growth that Malaysia has experienced throughout the first half of this year has been announced as one of the best and most impressive in the world. The second finance minister said that Malaysia has begun to register a particularly strong growth of 6.4% throughout the second quarter.
The Malaysian economy could lose nearly $1.3 billion in tourism revenue this year, according to analysts speaking to the South China Morning Post, with many Chinese tourists now cancelling their trips following the controversy surrounding the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
