Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Hutang Kerajaan: Perbandingan Masa Tengku Razaleigh dan Najib Jadi Menteri Kewangan

Tengku Razaleigh membuat kenyataan di Parlimen semalam yang cuba membuat beberapa gelombang politik.

Mari kita buat perbandingan masa Tengku Razaleigh dan Najib jadi Menteri Kewangan.

Mari kita lihat  kembali pada metrik fiskal semasa Ku Li sebagai Menteri Kewangan (defisit fiskal dan hutang kerajaan sebagai nisbah kepada KDNK; kawasan berlorek):

[01_deficit%255B2%255D.png]

[02_debt%255B2%255D.png]
Sumber: Blog Economics Malaysia

Yang benar adalah, pengurusan fiskal adalah dan boleh menjadi acara tertentu. Ku Li terpaksa berhadapan dengan kejatuhan terbesar dan paling ketara dalam harga komoditi global dalam sejarah moden. 

Kerajaan sekarang ini pula terpaksa berhadapan dengan kemelesetan global yang paling lama dan paling teruk sejak Kemelesetan Besar The Great Depression.

Masa Najib menjadi Menteri Kewangan cabarannya adalah lebih getir dan lebih mencabar. Kita rakyat Malaysia perlu mendokong penuh usaha-usaha dan program-program Najib sebagai Menteri Kewangan dan Perdana Menteri bagi menghadapi cabaran ini semua demi kepentingan rakyat dan negara.

Semasa Mahathir menghadapi krisis kewangan Asia 1997 ketika itu Mahathir juga adalah Menteri Kewangan dan Perdana Menteri.

DS Najib  sebagai Menteri Kewangan dan Perdana Menteri sekarang ini berkeyakinan tinggi untuk mengurus ekonomi semasa era kemelesetan global yang paling lama yang Malaysia sedang hadapi sekarang.

WZWH secara peribadi tidak memberikan terlalu banyak kepercayaan kepada apa yang Ku Li benar-benar kata di parlimen semalam.

Selain itu, tidak masalah besar. Tidak ada yang "tiga kali ganda" hutang luar negeri Malaysia antara 2014 dan 2013. Jika anda mengambil takrif baru ke belakang, peningkatan dalam 4Q14 lebih 4Q13 adalah lebih sederhana 8%, atau lebih kurang sejajar dengan pertumbuhan KDNK nominal Malaysia. Dalam erti kata lain, tiada apa yang benar-benar berlaku.

Ini semua apa yang Ku Li cakap adalah  “storm in a teacup”- ribut dalam sebiji cawan!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pengkritik2 kerajaan nampak tak cerdik dan hentam kromo sahaja lebih2 lagi dari pembangkang. Ini menunjukkan budaya politik yang x sehat dan emosi di pihak bukan kerajaan. Memalukan...

Anonymous said...

And so, in the media, it is reported that Malaysia’s external debt (some were more careless by giving the impression that it was total debt, just to make a sexy, alarmist headline for the clicks) increased by more than three folds. This is one of those deplorable reporting:

Malaysia’s external debts grew by more than three-fold in less than a year, from RM196 billion at the end of 2013 to a whopping RM740.7 billion in the third quarter of last year. In a written reply to William Leong (PKR – Selayang), Finance Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak attributed the spike to “new definitions” for external debts in 2014. Almost two-thirds of the increase was due to foreigners holding on to Malaysian bonds, now considered as part of the external debts. Leong warned that this is the scenario currently taking place with debt-laden 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) where a huge chunk of its RM42 billion debt is allegedly being held by foreigners. [Eileen Ng. The Malaysian Insider. Malaysia’s external debt tripled to RM740 billion last year]

From there on comes various accusations by a whole lot of laypersons, at a time the government is already under severe attacks for the fiasco that is 1Malaysia Development Berhad. I am not a fan of this government but in this particular case, the focus is misplaced and the criticism on external debt is based on a misunderstanding. The supposedly massive rise in the external debt is a non-issue, unless you are a wonk excited about the most technical of things. This is what it is, a technical matter.

The truth is that there is really no increase of that magnitude in Malaysia’s debt, totally, externally or internally. Malaysia has always owned all of those debts. What happened was that the term “external debt” was redefined to include all debts held by foreigners. Previously, the term was used to describe all Malaysian debts denominated in foreign currencies, regardless of ownership. The former is big, the latter is small. If you need a Venn diagram to understand them, here it is (the graph does not exactly correspond with the definitions but it is good enough to highlight the difference in definitions):

Malaysia's new external debt definition

This redefinition exercise had been recommended by the International Monetary Fund for the longest time and Malaysia only recently decided to adopt the proposed nomenclature. This in fact was announced last year, as early as March. When I first learned that last year, I made a joke that somebody would scream murder. Indeed, a year later, here we are. MP William Leong definitely fell into the layman’s trap, and a whole lot of others too.

There was only an increase if you used one definition at one point and then switched to another definition at the next point, and pretend the two definitions refer to the same thing. This is wrong. You need to compare points from the same definition for the growth figure to make sense. The supposedly dramatic jump-growth as reported in the media is just a garbage figure of no value. It was calculated by including a significant, large structural break.

While the media is utterly in the wrong and clueless even as they wrote the word “redefinition” in quotation marks as if it is a meaningless term, the Ministry of Finance is the cause of this misunderstanding. While it mentioned the redefinition exercise, the ministry compared the old definition with the new one and voila, a drastic increase just because they naively calculated the growth rate, despite, knowing a redefinition had occurred. So, it is a horrible answer, as horrible as the way the Finance Minister is handling the 1MDB issue. The media was just playing the role of a loudspeaker here, with no thinking in the middle.

Anonymous said...

I repeat. There is no increase as reported. If you keep the old definition and apply it forever, you will find any change from that will not come anything close to the sensationalist headlines featured by Malaysiakini and The Star all the way to, disappointingly, The Edge, which I consider as the most economic-financially literate Malaysian publication. I like The Edge but a mistake is a mistake. If you use the new definition and then stretch it backward, there will be no big change as well. Just keep the definition consistent if you want to calculate the growth.

Finally, there is really nothing sinister about the redefinition.

The reason for the redefinition has something to do with the evolution and the maturity of the Malaysian debt market. Twenty or thirty years ago, Malaysia did not have a big bond market and it was relatively unimportant to the economy, especially compared to today. So the old definition made sense then, in some ways. But since the 1990s, the Malaysian bond market has expanded rapidly to become one of Asia’s biggest. Foreign ownership of government debts also shot up as foreign investors searched for relatively safe assets. The debt market has become so large, that the newer definition becomes the more attractive one to use.

As in a lot of stuff out there, which definition to use really depends on your purpose. Just understand the data before using it.

So, ladies and gentlemen, please do not get too excited here. On this front, there is nothing to see really

maae said...

Bila KuLi kritik, ia tidak lain memberi kredit kepada Rafizi dan kelompok tegar menjatuhkan Umno dan kerajaan.

Kita kena bijak. Masa KuLi, bajet hanya ratus juta. Masa Najib naik berganda kepada bilion. Semua ini tekanan global, di burukkan lagi hutang Amerika setelah "bubble" kredit yang melingkupkan syarikat gergasi beratus tahun sudah beroperasi. Fenomena ini banyak mempengaruhi dunia kerana penstrukturan semula yang juga bankrap masa Obama.

Jadi nya apabila Malaysia menumpukan ekonomi domstik- mikro dan berehat sebentar dari makro, sekurang-kurang nya kita menyaksikan pertumbuhan positif dengan kegiatan pihak kerajaan dan swasta merancakkan aliran tunai negara dan berkisar demi menjaga kepentingan rakyat agar inflasi di kekang.

Jika KuLi dan Tun Mahathir menegur, impak nya agak negatif kepada BN. Sepatut nya dua tokoh ini tidak mengeluarkan kenyataan yang sempit memburukkan keadaan, apa lagi menjadi bola tanggung untuk pihak lawan.
Begitu jugs Najib mesti sentiasa berhemah dan berimbang. Cuma kegagalan beliau mengasingkan tomahan kepada Rosmah menjadikan pembangkang bermaharajalela. Hakikat nya Gabenor BNM sentiasa menjaga prestasi dan rizab negara supaya akaun kerajaan sentiasa berimbang, walaupun berdefisit.

Kita harapkan kemakmuran dan keselesaan hidup di negara tercinta ini. Jauhi rasuah dan sentiasa beintegriti kepada yang berpolitik dan punya kuasa kerana kebajikan untuk rakyat itu mesti di pundak mereka. Jika ketua kita "buta," kita lah terpaksa campurtangan untuk membantu memimpin.

kiasfansuri said...

tahniah tuan! kupasan terbaik.

Anonymous said...

dulu lain sekarang lain, dulu berjuta sekarang berbilion..tak sama cara dulu dengan cara sekarang...kala zaman ku li pakai calculator sekarang dah pakai computer canggih...jadi elok lah jangan di hiraukan sangat cakap cakap orang tua yang dah expired, nak tolong tolong lah selesaikan masaalah bukan buat orang tak tidur lena..fikir lah kalau orang macam ku li ni kena attack..boleh tidur lena ke...bantu untuk maju bukan untuk mundur...this is new era...and the old thinking is not relevant any more..

Anonymous said...

Mcm syncronized comment je...?????

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