FinTips - Jan 2012

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!!! Well, here we are at the start of the year of the “Water Dragon”. And true to its name, it seems to be all gloomy and wet in Kluang. However, I don’t see that spoiling the festivities. Spirits are still soaring high and celebrations are still taking place all over the neighbourhood. It certainly is good to be back home after quite a while. 

The Year of the Water Dragon….Let’s start of by knowing what the dragon actually means. The dragon, in the Chinese astrology chart symbolizes power. It was also the symbol of the emperor. The dragon is known for its unpredictable and temperamental nature. But it is also known to bring luck and fame to many, as it is surrounded by “mystical forces”.

So what does the year 2012 entail for us in terms of the economy? Well, it certainly is going to resonate with the essence of the dragon by being very unpredictable in the macro sense. But on the micro sense, it is time to make money on the short term market gains. Granted that we are not going to experience a market boom like that of 2010, but there are going to be little spikes here and there that will benefit the investor. The market’s unpredictable nature will be due to the new skeletons emerging from the first world closets.

With the Eurozone having already met 5 times since the start of the year with sound financial decisions yet to be made, the Eurozone slump is going to dampen the global market as a whole. This, like I have been saying since last year, is going to enable Asia to recapture glory. And some of the countries in the Asian region have indeed taken excellent steps (some way ahead of the others) in addressing the potential crisis that looms in 2012.

Indonesia was one of the first to act on it. Having reduced their interest rate around the 3^rd quarter last year, Indonesia had generated funds to provide liquidity in the market to urge more investment spending within the country. With more money for investments within the country and the strengthening of their local demand and supply, Indonesia has gone the distance where many might reach, only after a VERY long time. As cost of production weighs down the many countries as their market demands aren’t met, it seems to be more feasible to outsource production to countries where the cost is just but a fraction of their actual production cost. And here is where the Asian region jumps into the front lines. 

Besides Indonesia, there are other countries that are looking at growth this year. Truth be told, anything beyond the national inflation is a very reasonable rate of growth at this point in time. The countries that might be experiencing such growths will be those like Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri lanka, India and China. Well, I’ve already spoken on Indonesia and I bet many would have had a mixed feeling upon noting Malaysia’s name in the lineup.

Truth be told, Malaysia actually has excellent room for growth. But that potential would only be reached when the penned plans are put into action. Malaysia has rather blatantly announced of a reduction in

interest rates. Chances are many may have missed it (or did you?) Before the end of the year, the Malaysian National Bank @ Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) had introduced new notes to the public. Many had gotten excited and had made tedious efforts towards getting their hands on the first print of these new notes and coins. They had announced that this money shall be coming into circulation by the middle of this year. So naturally, they are going to be printing more money. When more money is being printed, there will be more supply of money than demand which would decrease the interest rate; but this would only be temporary. This would urge more investment spending in Malaysia. However, where these funds are going to be channeled would determine the rate of growth in the nation. The reduction in interest rates would affect the fixed deposit rates in the banks. As it would cost lesser for banks to acquire loans from BNM, there will be a lesser demand for public money; which would negatively affect the fixed deposits. Loans are going to be available but banks are going to be very stringent as they are still very weary of the global financial crisis. 

As for the political scene being able to boost the national economy, it is going to end up being an old maid’s tale. As the postponement of the elections have been feverishly taking place since last year, the corporations funding these campaigns and corporations expecting funds from the political parties are growing faint. It is only going to be a matter of time in which they (the corporations) would decide to practice detachment. So basically, the Malaysian market is not going to be severely affected by the elections.  

As for a country like Sri Lanka, the rebuilding of the nation has become priority for the nation as they need to be able to generate their own funds to sustain in this currently sloppy market. Laden with natural resources and excellent investment opportunities for the many different sectors, Sri Lanka has become an interest to many investors globally. Of course, with the emotional stigma still existing due to the civil war, it has given the perfect opportunity to certain countries and races, which do not have much of an emotional connection with the populace of Sri Lanka, to pour in their funds. To be honest, it is these countries and individuals who are going to reap the best gains available. 

As for India and China, they have the population and the supply. So the market is pretty self sustainable. But they still have their drawbacks. India, with its political turmoil might be facing a little bit of a stagnant growth in certain sectors. And these sectors might drag the general economy of the country. China, still being moved by the US, is going to have restricted growth too. That is why; these countries have been actively channeling their money to other countries to reap gains from them. 

That’s the gist of the global economic scene for now. So, I would personally advise investors to partake in the continuous growth by staggering their investments and making a continuous stream of investments throughout 2012. Do take note, the best time to make money is to ride the markets when they are down, not when they are high. So let’s ride the dragon people! 

By,

Ashveen Chakravarthy Sekaran

Jan 24^th, 2012

Economic Transformation Plan

So much has happened throughout this year that it has left quite a number of us utterly flabbergasted and with so little to say. As the life span of “the truth” shortens with the unveiling global scenarios, making concrete statements is rather difficult. And that is probably the reason why we see a lot of statements being made today, revoked tomorrow or even politicians today, layman tomorrow…. And politician again the day after… Let’s switch gears now shall we?

About a month back, I got an invitation to attend a programme organized by Ernst & Young Malaysia. It was called Decoding the DNA of the ETP (Economic Transformation Programme) with the caption – Bringing Your Idea to Fruition. With strong government support and HUGE financial allocations, it is, I quote “ driven with the desire to create new jobs and drive GNI (Gross National Income) growth”. But before I proceed further, please read the following disclaimer:

Disclaimer: This article will be presenting my personal views on several issues and is NOT written with the ideology of conforming to the general youth fashion of scrutinizing everything that is happening. 

Directly under the Prime Minister’s wing, the ETP is aimed at putting Malaysia in the forefront of the global economic scene. Being creative, innovative and daring does give this plan a certain edge (on paper) . So with the 16 chapters of the booklet and handbook, plus the 54 page executive summary read, I went to decode the DNA of this ETP with much renewed enthusiasm! And here is my executive summary… There is much retardation in the gene pool… To be honest, they need to decode the DNA of the ETP again… and this time, with genetic engineers who have a business ideology, who are not just a bunch of number crunchers! 

While Dato Idris Jala was talking on stage about the ETP, I should say, things did look very promising. Geared at promoting the local industry while creating more job opportunities for Malaysians, the ETP did indeed show ways of making Malaysia a high income nation by the year 2015.  One of the main ways, according to Dato Idris Jala, was to create healthy competition in the market place. Knowing that competition in the market place is the only way to boost any economy, I was excited that the ETP is going to be the catalyst of it. He also went on to say that this is one of the key indicators that is going to drive Malaysia towards the global scene, as the competition would be conducted while implementing “ceteris peribus” in the market . The latin phrase Ceteris Peribus means “while all else is held equal”. That’s went I went “BRAVA!” But the excitement came to a premature end when he said that a special key indicator was created to focus on developing the Bumi SMEs in Malaysia. And my immediate reaction was “ceteris peri-what?!”

Don’t get me wrong by thinking I am racist in any level, but if market competition is to be created, the idea of equality needs to be a key player. THE MALAYSIAN RACE needs to be looked at rather than the ethnicities when it comes to driving our economy.  When a particular group is given a certain privilege compared to other groups, it tends to help that group for a short period of time. However, when the same group reaches its comfort zone, productivity would reduce and by then it would be too late for anyone to expect anything from that group. This is the same thing that has happened in many countries around the world which has led to quite the havoc in recent times. With so much happening in the world, I felt rather dumb founded that Malaysia would still focus on such issues when “the man” a.k.a the PM, is driving the 1Malaysia concept, is diligently advocating equality in Malaysia. I bet he would not have allowed this if it was directly under his wing… Oh wait… it is… *sigh*. Please read the following disclaimer:

Disclaimer: By the comment made above, I am NOT pledging my support to the oppositions. I reserve my right to remain impartial. As a matter of fact, I do not have time for parties/groups/movements that bicker on petty issues while there is a bigger picture that needs tending to. Fecal matter, covered in candy, is still fecal matter.

If Malaysia is aiming at becoming a high income nation, we need to level the playing field to allow more business ideas (despite ethnicity/class or creed) to flow through the system or basically apply liberal scrutiny. Liberal scrutiny (a term I just coined while writing this) would mean that the freedom of ideas is encouraged to flow through the system without taking into consideration race, class or creed while carefully analyzing (in this case) these ideas PURELY on the business and financial aspects. Otherwise, we would only know that Malaysia is a high income nation when our cattle farms are established in multimillion dollar condos and service apartments and sending these cattle on a half a million dollar vacation to Bali in order to increase productivity.  

Anyway, back to the ETP… The event went on with an exclusive forum with some of Malaysia’s prominent business and semi government entities. While many were voicing their strong opinions on the ETP and how Malaysia was conducting itself when it came to the implementation of the ETP, a particular entity baffled my brains by the “infinite wisdom” he displayed during the Q&A of the forum… The  CEO of TALENT CORP. Here is what happened:

He was sharing with the crowd, the ideas of Talent Corp in addressing the issues in the workforce in Malaysia. Here is what baffled me… They are going to spend millions and millions to bring back the Malaysian talent working overseas. And here is how they are going to do it:

a)      Match their pay in Malaysian ringgits (obviously it has to be more)

b)      Tax rate @ 15% (while we pay 28% personal tax or 20% company tax)

c)       2 Tax free cars / Tax reduced cars

d)      And other perks to keep them in….

And here is what I thought… While you are going to be spending millions and millions on bringing these diasporas back to the nation, you would be losing the many talented individuals and potentials within the country to other nations(and trust me, there are loads of them); they are going to be running out the back door (or if these guys are too blind, the front door). As an individual who made a conscious decision to come back to Malaysia, despite being offered various good positions in the US and Europe, I feel that I (and many others like me) have been taken for granted. If there is not going to be tax alterations and unnecessary spending of tax money, I don’t see the need to re-print money in Malaysia anytime soon.

Here’s the thing, by reprinting money, the value of the Malaysian ringgit will reduce as there will be more money supply. This could be a method that Malaysia is implementing to attract foreign investors to invest in Malaysia. One of the things they might be failing to take into consideration is the fact that these external investors might be running out of money due to the lack of money in the countries of the investors. Plus, the major economies in the world like Indonesia, China and India are looking at internalizing their markets to improve their global standing in the economy. With the “power house” title up for grabs, all the countries are off on the global economic rat race! (With the exception of the US as they are still deciding on who is going to run the race, and Europe as they are still discussing on the rules with the umpire (IMF).)

The ETP, like I first said, is an EXCELLENT plan… But the execution is rather questionable. Malaysia has to leverage on the strength of the MALAYSIANS as being ethnocentric is not going to get us moving anywhere; as a matter of fact, we might still be stuck behind at the refreshment tent, eating our santan (coconut milk) laced snacks while the rest are running the race. And when the winners are announced, we might just die of a heart attack – still at the refreshment tent!

By,

Ashveen Chakravarthy Sekaran

Dec 22, 2011