Since the finance minister and deputy prime minister Najib is asking for more feedback, I would like to urge him to consider giving direct stimulus to the people. Let them decide their own consumption pattern.
Already, governments in Australia, Taiwan and Singapore are doing the same. Give cash coupons to the people to enhance domestic demand. If the government is serious in promoting buy Malaysian products, these cash coupons could help to raise domestic demand. Different people have different consumption needs. Hence, the direct stimulus will help to cushion against a sudden drop in consumption after the Chinese New Year period.
I have spoken to several senior executives in Penang and they informed me there is still job but mainly from last year's order book. They have not received any solid order yet this year. Hence, many of these manufacturers are likely to close down once the order backlog is cleared.
Second, the government should consider using the financial stimulus to create new jobs, new industries and new markets. There are a few areas we can do well e.g. food production, new agriculture products, services and hospitality, public transportation and light manufacturing.
Malaysia's food import bill is still very high, RM30 billion a year. It is time we focus on promoting local production and at the same time lower our import bill. Afterall, Malaysia is known as a food haven.
There are approximately 600,000 new job seekers every year. Unfortunately, less than 20 percent of companies are still hiring. Adding this figure to the unemployment numbers, we could be seeing jobless rates climbing to a record high by the second Q of 2009. Focusing on reskilling and retooling is not going to take these workers anywhere. The government could create new jobs and new industries for them to seek employment. It is time to create agriculture entrepreneurs.
Malaysia's hospitality and tourism industry has a huge untap potential. Imagine Penang, there is hardly any inbound tour specialists to help and assist tourists. Simply, we are not branding our tourism right. We can shore up our hospitality industry by creating more supporting jobs. Get these people to help enhance our infrastructures, amenities and become tour consultants. What is the point of being blessed with the best geographical wonders but doing nothing to promote and preserve them?
The lack of public transport is a sore point for the country. Since we do not need to protect the national car, Proton, anymore, the government should use the stimulus to build more public transport for the people e.g. buses, taxis, special inner city automobile (tuk tuk in Thailand) and others. The logistics and public transport sector should be able to create more job opportunities. There are many more social benefits - we get to reduce traffic jam, pollution and enhance mobility.
Najib should seriously reconsider giving the allocation to the ministries to build all types of nonsense e.g. Dewan Serbaguna, parks and more lamp posts. Half the allocation will be lost somewhere. A quarter more goes into the pockets of foreign workers. Infrastructure building will take a longer time to ensure money trickles down to the people.
It is time for the finance minister, both of them, to wake up from their slumber!
9 comments:
All said and done, now we, all Malaysians should know that UMNO is NOT fit to govern anymore.
That should be decided at the next GE.
Monk
If they are awaken,we all won't be in this shit.
the first thing they should do is reduce petrol price to rm1-50 or less. any economist will be able to tell you how much that will generate in domestic consumption.
Good idea! The problem is our ministers/government don't listen to good ideas. They can't even the good ones from bad ones. The truth is they don't even fully understand what is going on!
Clear, simple common sense have a tendency to fly over the heads of the decision makers. The modus operandi by the authorities generally is lip service and wherein possible to pull the wool over the rakyat's eyes. A good example is the "Malaysia, Truly Asia" tourism slogan. An entire value add sub niche can be created for tourists to experience. However, the authorities seem to be content with just televising the slogan without efort to actually enable tourists experience the claim. We live in sad times Mr. Khoo and the misery is getting ever more intense.
Kerajaan prlulah memikir cara yang terbaik untuk menyuntik stimulus dalam meransangkan ekonomi negara, lihatlah model dari luar negara yang berkesan. Perbelanjaan keatas projek yang tidak berapa penting seperti PLKN yang memakan belanja yang agak banyak hendaklah ditangguhkan buat sementara waktu.
May I add one more suggestion. Please ask the Goverment to turn Malaysia into a Welfare State. This will definitely boost our Economy. We should pay our pensioner from the private sector and also those who are seeking employment like in the western countries, unemployment benefits. To pay out social benefits there must be control and mean income test like what Australia and New Zealand are doing. This will defitely increase the demand for basic food, lodging, clothing and all the basic needs and this in turn will keep our economy moving.
Besides there will be lesser crimes and lesser spending on our security and I believed the poor will not resort to crimes if their basic food, lodging and clothing are taken care by the state.
The bailed out of big companies in our country and in some Western countries are helping a few individuals multi millionaires/billionaires, and why not bailed out the millions of poor people and in return it will prop up our economy.
Please include my suggestion in your next article.
Lim Ann Wei
khoo,
RM 200 million to an organisation headed by his wife to develop nurseries. is that part of the slumber exercise or economic stimulis?
by the way, do you know he is spending the rest of the RM6.8 billion? I dont.
first, ask him to be inclusive in his politics and respect the rights and wishes of the voters. stop penalising those voted for PR. RM1.0 million to each MP from BN under the RM7.0 billion stimulis plan. why only BN reps? you mean the consitutents from PR dont pay taxes? with such continuous tribal politics favoured by BN, they expect us to sacrifice for them? Go take a hike, BN. In fact, Khoo we should start a campaign to boycott all goods that are produced by BN's cronies to wake them up from their slumber that we taxpaying citizens want equal rights.
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