BAHANG KELEMBAPAN KIAN TERASA

Krisis ekonomi Amerika mula menjerut Malaysia. Industri sokongan kepada kilang seperti AKN turut terjejas. Banyak syarikat melapurkan keuntungan yang semakin berkurang (MIER). 70% daripada 110 syarikat terhebat negara mencatat pendapatan di luar jangkaan. Ekonomis menyasarkan kadar pertumbuhan sekitar 3.5 - 5% sahaja walaupun kerajaan beranggapan ia setinggi 8.5%.

Ekspot ke USA menyumbang 23% GDP manakala barangan letronik dan komponen merupakan 62% ekspot negara. Menurut analis, ekonomi semakin lembab dengan begitu pantas sekali. Rezan negara telah merosot dari $34.5 bilion (April 2000) kepada $28.99 bilion (February 2001).

KAWALAN MATAWANG MAKIN TERHIMPIT

Ringgit kini sudah kurang kompetetif kerana matawang serantau kian melemah. Barangan Malaysia kini 10% lebih mahal dari saingan terdekat rantau ini (seperti Thailand dan Filipina). Beberapa kilang di P. Pinang menganggarkan permintaan merosot 25-35%. Ekspot elektronik makin mengecil (10%) awal tahun ini.

Tanpa sokongan ekspot, ekonomi akan berjalan tempang. Ini sudahpun dikesan:

1- Pasaran saham kian lemah

2- Lapuran Pendapatan syarikat koporat banyak yang rendah

3- Harga Komoditi turut lemah - sektor pertanian tergugat

4- Permintaan domestik berkurang dari 10-12% kepada 6-8% (MRA)

5- Permintaan luar makin berkurang

BUKAN TEMAN LAGI

Ekonomi Jepun sedang meleset dan matawang Yen turut merosot. Kalau dulu (tahun 1998) Yen menyelamatkan kita dari tergelongsor - kali ini ia sudah tidak mampu menolong lagi. Matawang kita yang tidak kompetetif menyebabkan syarikat seperti ENG berpindah keluar daripada P. Pinang.

Sektor koporat Malaysia masih lemah dan mudah tumbang kerana hutang lapuk masih ada. Sesiapa yang lambat bertindak akan terkena kerana bencana sudah semakin tiba.

KOMEN

KRISIS EKONOMI BAKAL MENGHENYAK UMNO

Menurut pakar ekonomi, kejatuhan teruk ekonomi Amerika sehingga beberapa rekod pecah dibuatnya menggambarkan krisis tersebut akan memakan masa yang lebih lama daripada yang dijangka.

Kini sudah tiga sektor tergugat di bandar (kilang) dan desa (ladang):

1- Kilang - operator dan jurutera - (6,000 pekerja tergugat) [KM2 4043]

2- Ladang - petani dan peserta FELDA (ada 103,000 keluarga peneroka Felda) [KM2 3895]

3- Kewangan - pegawai sektor perbankan (10,000-17,000 pekerja tergugat) (Jumlah pekerja: 77,000) [KM2 4033]

4- Penduduk Setinggan - Terdapat 500,000 di sekitar KL sahaja. [Time]

Umumnya warga tua majoritinya menyokong BN tetapi skandal time dotCom mungkin membuatkan mereka berubah selera. Lagipun bil ubat-ubatan sudah semakin naik dan orang tua memang banyak berbelanja untuk merawat sakit dan menahan penyakitnya.

Kalaulah warga pekerja dan warga tua juga menyedari wang mereka diperjudikan untuk membayar hutang Halim Saad dalam skandal time dotCom, alamat Umno akan semakin cepat hilang dari dunia......

Kita imbau kembali bilangan pekerja terlibat yang dikorek simpanan mereka:

1- KWSP - 9.7 juta pekerja [KM2 4046]

2- KWAP - 850,000 pencarum [KM2 4046]

Bagaimana dengan warga muda dan pelajar universiti pula? Mereka akan semakin sukar mendapat kerja dan mungkin menganggur seketika. Kos pengajian yang semakin meningkat turut menghenyak hidup mereka.

Nombor-nombor ini cukup berguna buat Umno menggeleng kepala bagaimana ia mahu menawan hati rakyat yang sudah jemu dengan sikapnya. Selamat menggulung tikar segera....

-TJr Kapal Berita-

Rencana Rujukkan:

The Asian Wall Street Journal
23rd March 2001

Malaysian Companies Prepare For Sharper Slowdown in U.S.

By CRIS PRYSTAY And LESLIE LOPEZ

Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Semiconductor-packaging manufacturer AKN Technology Bhd. is battening down the hatches against the American contagion.

After watching its revenue skid 15% in the first quarter this year from last year's fourth quarter, AKN -- whose customers include National Semiconductor Corp. and Agilent Technologies Inc. -- has frozen hiring, canceled some production shifts and put this year's 17-million-ringgit ($4.5 million) capital-expenditure plan on indefinite hold. "We're bracing ourselves for a continued slowdown," says AKN's chief executive officer, Michael Loh. "I believe that by the second half, this [inventory] adjustment will be completed. But we want to make sure we're controlling our costs in the meantime."

Unsure how the U.S. slowdown will play out, many Malaysian contract electronics manufacturers are treading cautiously. So are some private economists, who expect 3.5% to 5% inflation-adjusted growth this year -- down from the government's estimate of 8.5% in 2000.

Woes Pile Up

Malaysia is particularly vulnerable to a U.S. downturn. Economists calculate that in 2000, the U.S. imported goods equivalent to 23% of Malaysia's 339-billion-ringgit gross domestic product. Electronics products and components accounted for 62% of Malaysia's total export earnings last year, with the bulk of those shipments going to the U.S. That market link helped Malaysia make a strong initial rebound from Asia's 1997 economic crisis, despite a weak domestic economy. Now, a U.S. slump threatens the country's ability to sustain the comeback.

The crunch comes as Malaysia's domestic economic woes are piling up. The latest quarterly survey released by the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research shows that consumer confidence is waning. Corporate profits also are shrinking: Yeoh Keat Seng of financial portal Malaysiastreet.com says 70% of the 110 top-listed Malaysian companies his research outfit tracks turned in earnings below expectations in 2000. "What's happening on the earnings front is a mixture of analysts expectations being a little bullish and things may be slowing down faster than we expected," he says.

Meanwhile, a drooping stock market, shunned by foreign investors since Malaysia enacted currency controls in 1998, could derail corporate-restructuring plans and pile more pressure on Malaysia's still-fragile banking sector.

All that could be making some Malaysians nervous. Economists point to a steady decline in Malaysia's foreign reserves as evidence. After peaking at $34.5 billion in April 2000, reserves fell to $28.99 billion at the end of February. Coming at a time when the country continues to run trade surpluses, some economists fret the shrinking reserves indicate capital flight. Should the trend persist, Malaysian policy makers could face a dilemma over the country's fixed exchange-rate policy, imposed by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's government in September 1998 to kill speculation against the ringgit.

Squeezed Peg

A squeeze on electronics exports could translate into fresh pressure on Kuala Lumpur's fixed exchange rate, which currently pegs the ringgit at 3.80 to the dollar. Alfred Teh, chief executive of ENG Teknologi Bhd., which makes components for semiconductor manufacturers, says it costs about 10% more to produce an item at his Penang plant than it does at his factories in the Philippines or Thailand, both of which have seen their currencies weaken in recent weeks. "With the ringgit at 3.80, right now, my plant here obviously doesn't seem that competitive," says Mr. Teh.

As regional currencies continue to slump, depressed by a weakening yen, that squeeze will only tighten. "The difficult choice of accepting either lower growth or a re-peg of the ringgit, both of which policy makers are loathe to make, is looming on the horizon," says Vincent Low, Merrill Lynch (Asia Pacific) Ltd.'s Southeast Asia economist.

For some Malaysian electronics exporters, hard times have already arrived. AKN Technology -- which has seen a 15% drop in sales -- has actually fared better than other Penang-based contract manufacturers that expect orders to decline by 25% to 35% in the first quarter from last year's fourth quarter.

After cranking up production to meet blistering global demand last year, those manufacturers now have to readjust output to clear inventories and match lower demand forecasts. The inventory correction has just begun to kick in this quarter: Overall Malaysian manufacturing output rose 15.4% on a year-to-year basis in January, down from December's 17.2% year-to-year growth. Electronics exports rose 14.4% in January, but that was the slowest monthly expansion in six months. On a month-to-month basis, electronics exports dropped 10% in January from December.

Manufacturers may not reach new optimum output levels until very late in the year, according to Merrill Lynch. Some economists say that even if the U.S. economy bounces back in a sharp V-shaped recovery in the second half, capital spending on information technology-related products will remain weak until the fourth quarter. Merrill Lynch, for example, predicts the U.S. semiconductor industry won't see growth until August or September, and the bulk of the inventory correction for large U.S. telecommunications companies, which continue to cancel orders, has yet to come. "The weakness in new U.S. orders of components has not even begun to bite into high-tech Asia's exports," warns Merrill Lynch's Mr. Low.

Mr. Low predicts that Malaysia will see 4% GDP growth this year. HSBC Securities, which forecasts a hard landing for the U.S. economy, expects that demand for Asian exports won't pick up this year. HSBC projects 3.5% 2001 GDP growth for Malaysia.

Without export support, Malaysia's domestic economy will likely continue to limp along. Consumption began to recover in mid-2000, but that rebound is already starting to flag. A weak stock market, poor domestic corporate earnings and a depressed agricultural sector, undermined by weak commodity prices, have muted buying power. Vehicle sales dropped 4% in December over November, the first month of negative growth in two years. In January, the Malaysian Retailers Association halved its sales-growth forecast for 2001 to 6%-8%, down from its earlier forecast of 10%-12% growth.

"External demand is falling, and that's the only thing keeping this economy going. Domestic demand did not really recover in Malaysia" after the crisis, says Sanjay Mathur, regional economist for UBS Warburg, who predicts 4.2% growth in 2001.

Friends No More

Unless growth perks up, Malaysia's currency peg could be tested as Kuala Lumpur's fixed exchange rate eats into export competitiveness. Merrill Lynch's Mr. Low notes that the yen's sudden strengthening in late 1998 pulled Asian currencies out of a slide just as economists began to worry that Malaysia's peg would undermine its competitiveness. But "what was your friend two years ago is not your friend now," says Mr. Low. "The yen is going the other way."

With the Japanese economy stumbling, the yen has slipped to about 122 to the dollar from 114.35 on Jan. 1. Bank of America Corp., for example, expects the yen to touch 132 to the dollar by December.

Some Malaysian manufacturers say they still support the ringgit peg, at least for now. "We don't think we should use the exchange rate as a method of adjusting our competitiveness," says Paul Low, vice president of the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers. "We should react by adjusting our operations, making them more cost effective."

Mr. Teh, at ENG, says the currency costs are only one part of the bigger competitive equation, which has been changing over the years. Since 1997, ENG has shifted its manufacturing operations from Penang -- which accounted for all its revenue just four years ago, but only 22% now -- to other factories around the region. "We're at the crossroad of moving away from labor intensive industry," he says. "The peg gave us breathing space for such industries to continue to exist in this country. This might not be a bad thing."

But if the peg holds, Malaysian exporters will have to cut prices to clear inventories and stay competitive, leading to deflation, argues UBS Warburg's Mr. Mathur. "Malaysia's corporate sector is not strong enough to withstand that; the bad assets are still there. If you want to remain profitable, you can't cut [asset] prices. If they run with the peg, the impact on corporate profits will be huge."

Write to Cris Prystay at cris.prystay@awsj.com and Leslie Lopez at leslie.lopez@awsj.com

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