Tuesday 27 February 2007

Review and Preview of the Malaysian Economy

“Most people think economics is boring, difficult and irrelevant. In fact, economics is fascinating, comprehensible and highly relevant.”


- Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator, Financial Times


~~~


Crunch time at work, less time to blog :(


Anyway, you might find this string of comments, pertaining to the state of the economy, interesting – my personal thanks to the owner of the blog for responding to my comments. Do note that I have blogged on the state of the economy and my core opinion remains.


Today is also a very interesting day. KLCI slumped after a lengthy frothy run (along with basically the rest of the world) – thanks to global developments (and Greenspan’s R-word perhaps). It is my personal opinion that this is merely a short correction triggered by culmination of global bad news – the underlying up'ish trend should remain for a while more (I hope).


What does this mean about the real domestic economy? Nothing much. Bank Negara Malaysia will announce the 4th quarter GDP figures tomorrow and hence the complete set of 2006 economic figures. Almost definitely, it will show sustained and stable growth rate – no recession/downturn/upward jump. If anything, it will exceed the official forecast of 5.8% slightly. The trends that have been happening for the past couple of years will remain – domestic private sector-driven, strong but moderating consumption growth, continued uptrend in investment, and so on. To really read more, these two good quality and concise “review and preview” pieces on the Malaysian economy can be downloaded free here, from RAM and ASLI. Read the summaries on outlook for 2007 to get an idea on what to expect.


It is unfortunate that good pieces like these are not read more.


Elanor

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That was an interesting "lively" piece of discussion by both yourself and KKP on such relevant topic. Thanks for the highlights, definitely my view on the country's current and immediate S/T outlook does not seem so confusing and uncertain anymore. But I guess the economy's fundamentals should be alright, if not how could the RM have gone north? Both of you are right that consumer spending power is an important factor as things like autos, houses and education account for real GDP.

( I have not been feeling good with the stagnant economy for a while and yet having to pay higher prices for mostly everything no thanks to rising oil prices and stupid inflation )

Now that we are going to see more cranes and activities in the construcion sites on our way to work, from the soon-to-be spending of the announced RM200 bil. under the 9MP and additional some from the private sector, hopefully, the money will flow down to the economy, there will be a trickle down effect..and hopefully by Dec. Christmas, I can change my small phone to a smaller size and hip-per one.

thanks again, elanor ( & KKP ) for the summarised 'managerial econs' tutorial and the reading list leads :)

feliz

Elanor said...

on the brighter side, technological goods are always getting cheaper - for the same amount of money, we can get way more advance piece of equipment every year.

hmmmm, but then again, catching up with the technology (and the joneses) might be costly.

oh well. thanks for reading feliz! :)