Vijendran Doraisamy

@jayaarram

Managing Director Keiteq (Thailand) Co., Ltd. Managing Director Riche Niche Groups SDN BHD (Malaysia) Director Keiteq Co., Ltd Japan.

Japan, Malaysia and Thailand

Joined May 2009

1.7K Following

838 Followers

650 Posts

jayaarram retweeted

Apurva Sanghi

@ApurvaSanghi

8 months ago

My take on the current state of the M’sian economy amid geopolitical upheavals [long-ish post]: But first the global economy. For all the wars, tariffs, general end-of-the-world vibes, the global economy turned out to be…annoyingly resilient, growing about 2.7% last year. This wasn’t economists hallucinating. There were good reasons: 1. Tariffs were louder than they were lethal. Msia's effective tariff rate landed closer to ~12%, not the headline 19%. Same for most countries. Why? Because of carveouts & exemptions. [As an aside, my colleague @IndermitGill argues that the biggest drag on trade isn’t necessarily tariffs; it’s standards (ie, product safety & environmental rules) that have proliferated like an “invasive species”]. 2. Tariffs hit goods, not services trade, which kept humming . In fact, M’sia even clocked its first services trade surplus in 14 years! 3. Emerging markets "showed up". 3 examples: - Argentina ran a rare budget surplus (yes, Argentina!) - India grew at 7.4% with low inflation AND low external deficits (no, not a typo!) - Nigeria’s forex & fuel subsidy reforms delivered its fastest growth in 4 years. In fact, Africa’s growth is now set to outpace Asia’s! Sure, there are caveats & risks to all the above but the main lesson: Countries that control their steering wheel will steer better. _______ So, how’s the M’sian economy doing? Pretty good, actually. Inflation is low, growth is solid, real wages are rising... ...and the ringgit has staged a comeback tour: from a low ~4.7/USD few years ago to 3.9ish/USD these days, making it Asia’s best-performing currency. A strong ringgit is helping bring down prices of imported food items like onions, cabbage, rice. Still, big FX swings, up or down, are not a free lunch. Caution warranted. Tourism has been a surprise bright spot. But caution warranted: Malaysia should avoid playing the visitor numbers / volume game. The smarter move is to maximize value per visitor, for ex, through experience-led tourism a la New Zealand, Costa Rica, Kenya. (Mulu caves, anyone?) Now, one angst area is AI & jobs: About half of Malaysian workers face high automation risk. About a quarter are exposed to generative AI. Job losses are real but history shows how broad tech waves create new jobs, much like the internet era of the 1990s. Back then, nobody could have predicted that the most desirable jobs would be in the likes of FB, Apple, Google etc. Indeed, early AI-era roles are already emerging: AI trainers, data curators, prompt engineers. And “human-touch” jobs, like elder care, could see huge, rising returns. For an ageing M’sia, this is a wide-open, underexplored opportunity. So AI AIn’t going away. The real Q is how we prepare the next gen. Merely introducing tech / gadgets into classrooms in attempt to “modernize education” isn’t the answer. Foundations matter much more: building literacy, numeracy, collaboration, socio-emotional skills. We can also be inspired by Nobelists Banerjee & Duflo who provide a simple 2 step approach to improve learning outcomes: Step 1: Figure out what kids actually know (shockingly hard). Step 2: Help them get there (AI could make this easier via personalized learning). Which also means schools should teach the kids they have, not the ones they wish they had. _______ Ok, this is starting to sound like a Substack post so I’ll stop here…but there's plenty more to say on M'sia: - New findings on the business environment - Oddly overlooked issue of long-term joblessness - Why preventive health is so hard (hint: it’s not always supply but, surprisingly, lack of demand). Maybe I’ll cover these in future posts, but for this one, the bottom line is that Msia’s hands are on the steering wheel for now... ...and the payoff of managing geopolitics will matter most if they continue to show up in everyday life: lower cost of living, better jobs, kids with strong foundations to help them navigate an uncertain future. Everything else is, well, just…commentary. END/

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jayaarram retweeted

Apurva Sanghi

@ApurvaSanghi

over 3 years ago

How's the M'sian economy doing? Our World Bank take on headline macro: 1. M’sia’s 2022 growth among HIGHEST in E. Asia 2. Recovery BROAD-BASED 3. 2022 Govt revenue HIGHER vs 2021 4. Inflation coming DOWN 5. Un- and under- employment both going DOWN All true headlines BUT...

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Vijendran Doraisamy

@jayaarram

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