Justice Has Been Done, Says Obama

This video frame grab obtained from ABC News showing the interior of the mansion where Osama Bin Laden was killed on Sunday. — Reuters picture

“Let me say to the families who lost loved ones on 9/11 that we have never forgotten your loss, nor wavered in our commitment to see that we do whatever it takes to prevent another attack on our shores.” — US President Barack Obama

WASHINGTON: Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed in a firefight with American forces in Pakistan on Sunday, President Barack Obama announced, ending a nearly 10-year worldwide hunt for the mastermind of the Sept 11 terror attacks. "Justice has been done," Obama said in a hastily called, late-night White House speech revealing the death of the elusive head of the militant group behind a series of bloody attacks in cities across the world.

His death, confirmed by officials in Pakistan, was a huge symbolic blow to al-Qaeda, which has been beaten back but is still a threat in many countries.

It prompted jubilant flag-waving celebrations here and in New York. It was the biggest national security victory for Obama since he took office in early 2009 and could give him a political boost as he seeks re-election in 2012. Obama may now find it easier to wind down the nearly decade-old war in Afghanistan, begun after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000.

But the operation could complicate relations with Pakistan, already frayed over United States drone strikes in the west of the country and the jailing of a CIA contractor accused of killing two Pakistani men. Obama said US forces led a targeted operation that killed Osama in a compound in Abbotabad, north of Islamabad. No Americans were killed in the operation and they took care to avoid civilian casualties, he said.

A senior administration official said it was believed that three adults, besides Osama, were killed, including an adult son of Osama. Osama's death triggered a travel alert for Americans worldwide, the US State Department said, warning of the potential for anti-American violence. Thousands of people gathered outside the White House, waving American flags, cheering and chanting "USA, USA, USA".

Similar celebrations erupted in New York's Ground Zero, site of the World Trade Center twin towers felled by hijacked airplanes. Many Americans had given up hope of ever finding Osama after he vanished in the mountains of Afghanistan in late 2001.

Intelligence that originated last August provided the clues that eventually led to Osama's trail, the president said. A US official said Obama gave the final order to pursue the operation last Friday morning. "The US has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda and a terrorist who is responsible for the murder of thousands of men, women and children," Obama said.

Former president George W. Bush, who vowed to bring Osama to justice "dead or alive" but never did, called the operation a "momentous achievement" after Obama called him with the news. Martin Indyk, a former US assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs, described Osama's death as "a body blow" to al-Qaeda at a time when its ideology was already being undercut by the popular revolutions in the Arab world.

Other experts were more cautious. "It changes little in terms of on-the-ground realities -- by the time of his death, Osama was not delivering operational or tactical orders to the numerous al-Qaeda affiliates across the world," said Rick Nelson of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Statements of appreciation poured in from both sides of Washington's often divided political divide. Republican Senator John McCain declared, "I am overjoyed that we finally got the world's top terrorist". Said former president Bill Clinton: "I congratulate the president, the national security team and the members of our armed forces on bringing Osama bin Laden to justice after more than a decade of murderous al-Qaeda attacks."

Having the body may help convince any doubters that Osama is really dead. However, a US official said Osama had been buried at sea.

Finding a country willing to accept the remains of the world's most wanted terrorist would have been difficult, the official said. So the US decided to bury him at sea.

"We wanted to avoid a situation where it would become a shrine," another official said. -- Agencies

Osama is Dead

PETALING JAYA: Security forces around the world raised their level of vigilance after the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a military operation by the United States in Pakistan.

Osama was bombed

International police agency Interpol issued a global alert to “a heightened terror risk from al-Qaeda affiliated or inspired terrorists” even as Osama's supporters took to the Internet to “vow revenge”. Several countries, including the US, Britain and Japan, also announced security alerts for their nationals, embassies and bases.

In Malaysia, police announced the stepping up of security measures at important locations. The US Embassy here warned Americans to be on the look-out but gave the assurance that its operations would continue as normal despite the warning.

In other developments:
> Celebrations erupted in US, especially at the White House and Ground Zero in New York, as news broke;
> Experts warn that despite Osama's death, terrorism would continue until the root causes have been addressed.

The big picture on skilled labour market

WILL the global downturn and fragile economies of the United States and UK prompt Malaysian talents to return, or attract talents from the West? RAM Rating Services Bhd looks at the situation in terms of two main cohorts. Chief economist Dr Yeah Kim Leng explains: “We have the fresh graduates with no experience and the experienced workers. If the job market is sluggish in industrialised countries, it would be more difficult for lower skilled Malaysians to obtain employment as there may be more competition for these vacancies. “We would expect the more experienced and skilled cohort to have some leverage compared to the inexperienced graduates. Thus, it may prompt a return of this group. However, some may decide to further their studies and stay on in these countries, to ride out the sluggish employment situation and/or better their job prospects.”

Click on image for actual size.

 

Yeah says the report reiterates a long-standing observation that we not only have not optimised the country's human resources to achieve faster growth, but that its rich human capital base has been eroded by a pick-up in talent outflow.

“Additionally, the brain drain not only has not been offset by an equivalent intake but we are also experiencing a decline in skilled expatriate population, thereby exacerbating the country's already narrow skill base.” Yeah was commenting on The World Bank's Malaysia Economic Monitor: Brain Drain. He says the comprehensive analysis of Malaysia's brain drain situation lends credence to the importance of the New Economic Model's (NEM) policy and strategic initiatives.

But besides targeted measures such as the setting up of Talent Corp, the recently announced 15% tax rate and other incentives, it reaffirms the need for a comprehensive solution to address the underlying causes such as misaligned economic incentives and social disincentives as highlighted in the NEM. “While measures and incentive could tip the decisions in Malaysia's favour, as mentioned in the World Bank report, they are complementary to the need to address productivity and inclusiveness challenges. Addressing the fundamental issues of productivity and inclusiveness will help to mitigate the negative effects of brain drain while accentuating the positive spillovers from the Malaysian diaspora,” he says.

Can Malaysia reform fast enough to meet challenges?

LET'S face it. The fact that talented professionals and even less-skilled Malaysians have left (and leaving) for better economic prospects and a less ethnically- and religiously-polarised environment over the past three decades or more is not new.

After all, who among Malaysians do not have family members and friends working and living abroad?
Brain drain and migration in general is a controversial and complex topic in this country, largely due to the ethnic overtones - a lot more non-bumiputras than bumiputras have left. Even so, in recent years, talented bumiputras have also become part of the million-strong Malaysian diaspora.

Ong Kian Ming says targeted measures such as those suggested by Talent Corp may not be sufficient to attract skilled Malaysians home.

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In years past, the human capital flight was something that was tacitly acknowledged by the Government. That has now been made known - very clearly - backed by volumes of data by the World Bank in its fourth edition of the Malaysia Economic Monitor.

That human capital flight is not new to Malaysia is acknowledged by the Washington DC-based international financial institution. But what is troubling is the observation by Bangkok-based senior economist Philip Schellekens and team, which produced the report, of the difficulty in implementing the more comprehensive and in-depth reforms under the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) namely those under the New Economic Model (NEM) announced by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak last year.

The NEM outlines eight strategic reform initiatives aimed at greater private initiative, better skills, more competition, a leaner public sector, pro-growth affirmative action, a better knowledge base and infrastructure, the selective promotion of sectors, and environmental as well as fiscal sustainability.

According to the report, the project-based initiatives of the ETP as represented by the National Key Economic Areas (NKEAs) have “demonstrated notable progress” but there is skepticism about the impact of the cross-cutting reform announcements under the NEM. The report recommends that the NEM cross-cutting reforms be accelerated despite the apparent difficulty in implementing such reforms.

It notes that to be successful, the NEM route will require a comprehensive overhaul of policy frameworks, where success may show itself only after a period of many years of steady implementation for example, there are few quick wins in strengthening the country's education system.

Schellekens says in a recent interview that sentiment is definitely warming up to Malaysia going from recent discussions that the World Bank team had with foreign investors. “At the same time, almost all the investors that we talked to have not really accounted for the NEM in their medium-term forecasts as they're skeptical,” he adds. Schellekens says investors feel that the Government will not really tackle the underlying cross-cutting issues as quickly and comprehensively as it is keen on boosting investment growth through the NKEA projects.

“That's the perception issue. It's partly unjustified because initiatives are being formulated but there's a sequencing problem. NKEA projects are moving quicker while the NEM reforms are moving slower. That's affecting sentiment,” he says.

Schellekens says the World Bank has had the benefit of working with the Government and has seen a number of positive developments (including those under the Government Transformation Programme, which together with the ETP form part of the comprehensive reform agenda) which are not reflected in the perceptions of investors.

Different picture
“We told the Prime Minister of this, that investment bankers are not going to tell you the truth when they come here because they rely on you for the business; so they're not going to be bearish on Malaysia. But when we talk to them, we've a different picture,” he says.

Meanwhile, underscoring the importance of the NEM reform, UCSI political analyst and lecturer Dr Ong Kian Ming says in an email reply that the surveys of those who have left clearly show that only sincere structural changes including a shift away from an ethnic-based to a needs-based policy of affirmative action and “evidence of fundamental and positive changes in the government” can entice them to return.
“This is not surprising since one presumes that these individuals do not return to Malaysia just for the short term but do so because they think that this country is the right place to bring up their children and for their children to have suitable economic opportunities,” he says.

Ong adds that it also shows that targeted measures such as those suggested by Talent Corp may not be sufficient to attract skilled Malaysians home or minimise their rate of leaving the country. He observes that the Government needs a “Singapore” policy since the city-state absorbed 57% of the diaspora and 54% of the brain drain as at 2010. “Without addressing the issues and concerns of the Malaysians who have moved, it will be challenging to stem the brain drain and to attract skilled talent to return to Malaysia,” Ong says.
As the World Bank report observes: To support the acceleration of reform implementation, policymakers could consider reprioritising the reform agenda, refocusing on the critical binding constraints to growth first and attempting to overdeliver on these. The good news is that, in the face of Malaysia's vast unrealised potential, the critical bottlenecks also present significant opportunities to accelerate growth. In this respect concrete policy actions that support productivity and inclusiveness should attract first priority.

Migration of Talent – How Can Malaysia Stem The Tide?

Brain drain stands in the way of a high-income Malaysia, a World Bank report says. But the solutions are not easy.
FOR over 25 years, Malaysia was one of the few Asian countries blessed with an annual growth of 7% and up. The country's growth spurt occurred between 1967 and 1997, which paved the way for the shift from low-income to middle-income. Among developing countries, Malaysia made tremendous progress in poverty reduction. In the 1970s and 1980s, income inequality was reduced dramatically while a Malay middle-class emerged.

World Bank’s Philip Schellekens ... ‘Whatever we present here we can stand by.’

 

These are laudable achievements no doubt. Nevertheless, in today's fiercely competitive global landscape and Malaysia's eye-popping data of escalating brain drain, the challenges for the country to move forward are far, far more complex. Last year, Malaysia had recorded a strong recovery but the momentum appeared to have tapered off with jittery growth in the last two quarters. While business sentiment has improved in the first quarter of this year, consumer confidence has weakened on concerns of rising inflation. Growth is expected at 5.3% this year and 5.5% in 2012. The three key risks in the near term are:

• A weaker-than expected global recovery, which will dampen growth momentum,
• A further strengthening of inflationary pressures, which may undermine consumer spending, and
• Weak fiscal consolidation.

Over the medium term, various government initiatives are being put in place to boost economic growth. But over and above the Economic Transformation Programmes and New Economic Models, the heart of Malaysia's transformation hinges on two fundamentals productivity, which requires a revamp of the education system, and policies of inclusiveness. Discontent with Malaysia's inclusiveness policies is a key factor, particularly among the non-bumiputras who make up the bulk of the diaspora.

Human capital is, after all, the bedrock of a high-income economy or for any economy for that matter. Sustained and skill-intensive growth needs talent going forward. Malaysia needs to develop, attract and retain talent.

Brain drain does not square with this objective. Malaysia needs talent, but talent seems to be leaving.
Brain drain the migration of talent across borders has long been a subject of debate and controversy. Of late, it has been openly discussed in the media, which is to be viewed positively. At least there is that openness today which was not there 10 years ago. The creation of Talent Corp Malaysia Bhd to bring back our own, and to attract new talent, is also a tacit acknowlegement by the Government that we need to manage our human capital carefully and diligently.

Brain drain is by no means something unique to Malaysia. It is something faced by many others. Taiwan saw many of its talented leave for Silicon Valley; the former Irish president Mary Robinson, during her presidency, did much to engage the Irish diaspora.

Within Asia, the brain drain is most pronounced in South-East Asia, according to the Malaysia Economic Monitor: Brain Drain released on Thursday (www.worldbank.org/my). The report says emigration rates are the highest in middle-income countries, which have both the incentive and the means to migrate. The incentive would be less strong for high-income countries. For low-income countries, financial and human capital constraints may make emigration less likely. Malaysia falls into the middle-income category.
The World Bank's Bangkok-based senior economist Philip Schellekens, who produced the report after an online survey among 200 respondents from the 1 million Malaysian diaspora around the world acknowledges that this number is small.

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“But the World Bank, in the first place, does not wish to present this as a definite conclusion. Instead, it wishes to convey a qualitative feel of what is going on. The study can be seen as the first step towards understanding what has been driving brain drain in Malaysia and how policymakers can address it.”
The report measures the size of the Malaysian diaspora and brain drain, its key characteristics and its evolution over the past 30 years. It gives an updated picture on the basis of the most recent information available, including Singapore's census results which were released early this year.

“We've avoided at all costs to use anecdotal sources for such a sensitive topic. So, whatever we present here we can stand by. We also document our sources of information so that other people, as part of this process, can continue the work, refer to our study, look at the numbers and update or improve them.”
It is an extension of previous reports on Malaysia, Growth through Innovation and Inclusive Growth. 

Why do people leave?
Brain drain is a symptom, not a problem in itself. It is the outcome of underlying factors as all of us respond to push and pull factors. While not every person leaving Malaysia constitute a brain drain, about a third of them do. Seen from the long lens of emigration and its effect years from today, Malaysia is not only losing talent today, it is also losing talent tomorrow, because children who leave with their parents, and who spend their formative years abroad, are less likely to return.

The report removes the veil of doubt and uncertainty over some numbers. Some of the key highlights are:
● The Malaysian diaspora is large and expanding, with a conservative estimate of about 1 million worldwide last year. The diaspora has quadrupled over the last 30 years, and is geographically concentrated and ethnically skewed.
● Singapore alone absorbs 57% of the entire diaspora, with the rest residing in Australia, Brunei, Britain and the United States. - Malaysia's brain drain is intense relative to its narrow skill base. - The brain drain is aggravated by a lack of compensating inflow. While many Singaporeans leave the city-state for greener pastures, many highly skilled expatriates also enter the republic.
The situation is different in Malaysia. While Malaysia receives many, most who come have low skills. Coupled with this dire situation, Malaysia's high-skilled expatriate base has shrunk by a quarter since 2004.
● The number of skilled Malaysians leaving for Singapore has increased from 10% in 1990, 23% in 2000 to 35% last year. This is defined by those who have tertiary education. About 47% of all skilled foreign-born residents in Singapore were born in Malaysia.
Malaysia is not on the brink of a crisis, but it can do better as it has a lot of potential. Brain drain, says Schellekens, should not be viewed as potentially negative. It has its positive potential, as when it aspires a young person to pursue tertiary education, as when it allows those who remain to leverage on those who have succeeded abroad.

“There is an increased openness in Malaysia to discuss these issues and this is a welcome development,” he says. The report goes beyond stating numbers and facts. It also identifies two areas the government needs to seriously look into the need to improve productivity and to strengthen Malaysia's policies of inclusiveness.
Talent Corp CEO Johan Mahmood Merican says the report is not something new. “It lends credence to what the Government already knows and we have taken action even before the World Bank report was released. There is a lot of work-in-progress which supports the direction that we have initiated.

“What is important is there is an urgency for us to change the business model if we are to advance. It is not a case of whether we stand still or we advance. If we stand still, we are effectively regressing. Vietnam and Indonesia are getting their act together and recording high growth. In that sense, it is consistent.”
Johan says the usefulness of such a report is that while it highlights the potentially negative effects of brain drain, it also highlights the flip side, its positive effects.

“Malaysia has been spared from the detrimental part of it in the sense that our industries have not come to a halt, as in some other countries. At the same time, it has not been as beneficial to us as a country, as it has to some other countries. So at this point in time, it is neutral. The question is, how do we make it net positive? This is where Talent Corp comes in. We are beginning to engage with Malaysians abroad and with the private sector,” Johan says.

Courting talent back
Four months after its establishment, Talent Corp is primarily focused on facilitating initiatives to attract, nurture, engage and retain talent to support human capital needs of the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP). This has resulted in the Residence Pass that enables top foreign talent, especially those in the ETP, to continue working in Malaysia for a longer tenure and fewer restrictions. There has also been revisions to the Returning Expert Programme to encourage more Malayisan professionals working overseas to come home and help drive the nation's economic transformation, especially in the ETP. Because of Malaysia's base in manufacturing, parcticularly in electrical & electronics, an industry-led initiative to address the sector's talent requirements, with an emphasis on nurturing local talent was launched last week. Similar groups in other key economic sectors are currently in the pipeline.

“This is clearly a long-term project. We are looking at small starting steps this year to ease the mobility of talent and to establish a baseline for future work,” says Johan. Other initiatives in the works will be announced later this year in due course.

Johan also brings up the success story of Pua Khien Seng, the Malaysian who invented the pen drive, and who has been residing in Taiwan for 16 years. Pua is now president and co-founder of Phison Electronics Corp, a listed technology company in Taiwan with a market capitalisation of almost NT$40bil (RM4.3bil).
“His business will always be in Taiwan. So how do we leverage on that? How can we facilitate that engagement with Pua, and other Malaysians, who are residing abroad?”

The larger question is: Can targeted measures such as talent management and diaspora engagement substitute more comprehensive reforms? Schellekens thinks not. “Our observation is that the targeted measures developed by Talent Corp are helpful. These are first steps in the right direction but if the underlying deterrents are not addressed comprehensively, then these measures will only have a marginal impact.”
The fundamental issues, or underlying factors why people leave relate to economic incentives, which can be captured under the umbrella of low productivity, and social disincentives which reflect discontentment among the non-bumiputras with Malaysia's inclusiveness policies.

“If you want to tackle the brain drain in a comprehensive fashion, it is not through reversing it or trying artificially to stop it. Tackle the fundamentals and things will happen automatically; people will feel incentivised not to leave the country, or to return if they have left,” Schellekens, the lead author of the report says.
The report highlights the progress made by South Korea. It was a third poorer than Malaysia in the 1970s in terms of average income but nowadays it's three times richer. One remarkable aspect of South Korea's development path has been its attention to investment in quality education. As with Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Japan, the bedrock of any country's progress is its human capital.

A statement from RAM Ratings Services Bhd says: “While we may be comforted by the report's finding that the brain drain has not reduced significantly the country's stock of educated workforce, it highlights the disconcerting fact that the country has a narrow skills base and that its skilled human capital base continues to slide, exacerbated by the brain drain. We need to actionalise inclusiveness under the clarion call of 1Malaysia and sharpen the focus on competitiveness, meritocracy, good governance and productivity in both the government and private sector. Only by unleashing private sector dynamism, entrepreneurialship and innovativeness can we sustain the virtuous circle of high investment-growth-productivity increases.”
Its chief economist Dr Yeah Kim Leng adds: “It would be difficult to achieve the high income target by 2020. Productivity growth would slow as the labour market would be more confined to lower-skilled sets. The country's industrial and technological upgrading and its shift up the value chain would be hampered by skills shortages, higher cost of foreign skilled manpower and deficiencies in innovation and entrepreneurship.”
While our challenge is to tap into our potential and we are blessed with an abundance in myriad areas and sectors this has become more difficult than a decade or two ago because competition in the region for trade, talent, and foreign direct investment has intensified. While we bicker among ourselves, other countries are forging ahead very quickly.

As Malaysia climbs up the income ladder, new challenges in form of innovation will come our way.
Says Schellekens: “Malaysia aspires to base its future growth on innovation. This means that growth will become more skills-intensive, creating a demand for skilled people as well as leading to rising wage levels for the skilled. This may accentuate the income disparity between the skilled and the unskilled, leading also to social challenges between the city and countryside.

Another challenge is the need for more internal competition. Iron sharpens iron. “There is a sense of urgency for Malaysia to implement the structural reform agenda more quickly as well as comprehensively, else the underlying momentum of growth will deteriorate through an erosion of competitiveness. We are concerned that some of these trends may be happening already, as with the parts and components trade within the electrical and electronics of Malaysia,” he adds.

Talent Corp CEO: Need to Change Business Model

TALENT Corp Malaysia Bhd CEO Johan Mahmood Merican (pic) is four months into the job. His task is a heavy one to bring back Malaysians who have left to work and reside overseas and to attract new talent. Johan would also like to engage with those who have left, and who may be able to facilitate their home country's move up the value chain.

He shares his thoughts with StarBizWeek's THEAN LEE CHENG about the issues covered by the World Bank's report Malaysia Economic Monitor Brain Drain the importance of English language as a medium for communication, the teaching of Maths and Science in the English Language and the country's vision.

SWB: We need good people. Many are leaving. What do we need to do?
Johan: If enough people play their part, hopefully we will get our country back. The Prime Minister has a vision, but are there enough people around to implement it? Are there enough of us to jump on the bandwagon? How do you mobilise the silent majority?

Education is important. So is English. Would you like to comment on the teaching of maths and science in English?
There are two parts to this (using the English language as a medium of instruction to teach maths and science). Most technical terms are in English. Most of the reference books are in English. If we are a country trying to do healthcare, communications, electrical and electronics, we need people to learn them in English. It is quite a task to learn these two subjects in one language and to switch to another language later on. I found it quite a task and it took me some time to get used to the various terms in English.

The other issue is, English as a language of communication. It needs to be enhanced. So there are two separate issues here. Both of them are important to Malaysia.

What are your comments about the World Bank report?
Having the World Bank to produce a report like this is credible. It is not something new, but it is a credible and independent third party looking at the issue. To some extent, it is consistent and lends support to what the PM is trying to do today. When we look at the New Economic Model (NEM), the efforts of Performance Management and Delivery Unit or Pemandu, the Economic Transformation Programme and 1Malaysia what are these initiatives telling us? They are telling us that we cannot be complacent. The world around us is highly competitive and if we aspire to become a high income economy, we need to change.

What is important is there is an urgency to change the business model to advance. It is not a case of whether we stand still or we advance. If we stand still, we are effectively regressing. Vietnam and Indonesia are getting their acts together and recording high growth. In that sense, it is consistent.

What is useful about a report like this is, it puts brain drain into a certain context. First, it is a global phenomeneon that immigration is high among middle-income countries. While it is potentially negative, it can also be positive. Malaysia has been spared from the detrimental part of it in the sense that our industries have not come to a halt as in some other countries.

At the same time, it has not been as beneficial to us as a country, as it has been to other countries. So at this point in time, it is neutral. The question is, how do we make it net positive? We are working with the Government and the private sector to make the most of the global environment. There is a lot of work-in-progress.

We have already embarked on an ambitious economic transformation programme (ETP) and the various projects. The Government is trying to create new opportunities to attract and retain top talent. There was a time when the Securities Commission was issuing stock broking licences. This was good from a talent perspective. If they did not have the international opportunities in Kuala Lumpur, they would have gone overseas to get that experience. Today, we are seeing more Malaysian companies going regional AirAsia, CIMB, Axiata. Sime Darby group has always been international. We need more international people.
While we are trying to attract foreign talent, there is also a need for policies that foster the right skills. Which takes us to our education system. Are our graduates industry ready?

There was and may still be a time when Malaysians immigrating were viewed negatively by certain people ...
There was a time when there was this thinking that if a Malaysian were to leave the country, he was defined as not loyal. That is not true. When I meet Malaysians overseas, some are even more loyal than those who are here. They exhibit that connectedness (which those who remain do not). They are helpful and they ask, “What can I do for Malaysia?” One of the challenges for Talent Corp is to start that engagement with Malaysians abroad.

The World Bank report highlights issues with regards to policies of inclusiveness ...
The Government recognises and is aware of the issues in terms of inclusiveness.
There are a lot of initiatives by the different ministries to improve the industry, our graduates and productivity.

While the Government has made a lot of economic initatives, like the mass rapid transit, it is possible that investors, analysts, investment and commercial bankers are not yet really pricing in the New Economic Model (NEM) into their medium-term forecasts for Malaysia because they are skeptical ...
The Government is sincere about these initiatives. Unfortunately, skepticism is a national sport for Malaysia.