Malaysia Should Stick To Its Manufacturing Roots To Ensure Future Sustained Growth

What these two distinguished professors think highly of Malaysia should be taken seriously by our mandated leaders.

First from Korean Comparison by Development Economics Professor at Cambridge University, Ha-Joon Chang.

Development Economics Professor at Cambridge University, Ha-Joon Chang, spoke to Carla Sapsford Newman about his counter-intuitive recommendation that Malaysia should stick to its manufacturing roots to ensure future sustained growth. He discusses why, in his opinion, a shift towards a service-oriented economy is not in Malaysia's longer-term interests. He discusses some of the problems associated with service-oriented economies: rising wages, a brain drain, dependence on FDI from multinational companies and a dependence on a relatively small number of sectors which are more vulnerable to global economic conditions. He discusses why Budget 2012's liberalisation of 17 service sectors is the wrong direction for the country to be moving in.

Royal Professor Ungku Aziz spoke 57 year ago about Project Malaysia...

Nigel Ryan reports from Malaya on the eve of the Malaysia Plan (1957) and looks at how such a racially mixed country hopes to profit from the creation of a greater Malaysia.

Cut to shots of people playing golf: Malaya has no colour bar, says commentary. Cut to shots of new school/university buildings: the new government commitment to education aims to foster a culture of tolerance. Ryan interviews Abdul Aziz, Professor of Economics, who says that the plan for a greater Malaysia will be good in the long term, that religious tolerance is important and that intermarriage is already quite common. He says Malaysia's problems will be economic, rather than racial. Cut to long shot of Ryan and Tuanku Abdul Rahman walking down a country road (outside the Tuanku's house?). Commentary sums up by saying that this month the Malayan prime minister visits London to ask for independence for British territories in Borneo.