KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia needs to learn and rethink basic assumptions about the economy for it to move forward and help people in distress, said prominent economist Jomo Kwame Sundaram.<\/p>\n
“You need to have countercyclical policies. And that is why I welcomed the PRIHATIN (economic stimulus package)\u00a0when it first came out last year but it was not sustained. People need to live, they need to keep the economy going,\u201d he said during the\u00a0virtual Malaysian Economic Summit 2021 today.
\n“Given the nature of the economy today, you cannot depend on (the government)\u00a0becoming employer\u00a0of last resort but you can become the buyer of last resort to keep the economy going to help people\u00a0(who are living)\u00a0in precarious conditions,” he added.
\nJomo was a panelist at a session titled \u201cWill Productivity and Growth Return After the COVID-19 Pandemic? How to Strengthen the Competitiveness of the Malaysian Economy in the New Normal?”
\nHe argued\u00a0that the country need not\u00a0be held hostage by\u00a0credit rating\u00a0agencies by taking countercyclical fiscal policies.
\nWe have to rethink our attitude\u00a0about a whole range of issues both internationally as well as domestically, but (we need to be open)\u00a0in terms of public policy and to think about these issues.
\n“What the chambers of commerce have raised (about\u00a0their problems) have been known for over a year and a half. We could have addressed these issues much earlier but we have a situation where some people presume that they know best and this is a very major problem,” said Jomo, who is also senior adviser at the\u00a0Khazanah Research Institute.
\nRecently,\u00a0German, Dutch and Japanese trade groups in Malaysia expressed concern over the government\u2019s COVID-19 response, warning that businesses are rethinking their investment decisions in this country.
\nMeanwhile, in answering questions during the virtual meeting, MUI Group chairman and chief executive officer Andrew Khoo said the government needs to diversify foreign direct investment (FDI)\u00a0into the country, which is mainly contributed by the oil and gas sector.
\n“This can be done by promoting the adoption of innovative and advanced technologies. Foreign investors also need\u00a0to be encouraged to establish or relocate subsidiaries in or to Malaysia,” he added.
\nKhoo said the government needs to improve the national competitiveness, in terms of FDI, by introducing more investor-friendly policies and incentives.
\nThe implementation of the National Fiberisation and Connectivity Plan (NFCP) needs to be sped up\u00a0to improve the country’s digital connectivity by rolling out 5G, he added.
\nKhoo said the next six months are\u00a0going to be absolutely critical to ensure the right level of confidence is cultivated amongst trade groups and the wider foreign investment community.
\n— BERNAMA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia needs to learn and rethink basic assumptions about the economy for it to move forward and help people in distress, said prominent economist Jomo Kwame Sundaram. “You need to have countercyclical policies. And that is why I welcomed the PRIHATIN (economic stimulus package)\u00a0when it first came out last year but it was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":5010,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5009","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5009"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5011,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5009\/revisions\/5011"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}