PAKEJ RANGSANGAN KERANA TIDAK TAHAN?

Malaysia kini dilanda kesusahan... belanjawan sudah pun dibentang, masterplan telah dirancang dan kini program rangsangan pula dikemukakan. Tetapi kroni dulu yang beroleh pertolongan sedangkan rakyat terpaksa bergaduh dulu sebelum menerima bantuan. Bank telah pun bergabung tetapi mereka pun tidak berani untuk menampung pinjaman lagi kerana sudah semakin sedikit untung. Malah 10,000-17,000 pekerja bank dijangka akan kehilangan pekerjaan. Saham yang menjunam menyebabkan kedudukkan bank semakin bergoyang kerana ia turut menjadi kolateral pinjaman. Di Filipina lebih RM3 bilion hangus lesap akibat pinjaman untuk Halim Saad sahaja yang berkolateral saham yang sudah tiada nilainya lagi. [KM 2841]

Banyak syarikat awam juga jauh tersasar untung jika tidak rugi melambung. Kelembapan ekonomi Amerika menyebabkan tergugat ekspot negara maka pakej RM3 bilion dilancarkan sementara potongan KWSP dikurangkan untuk merangsang permintaan domestik dan melompat sedikit untung. Tetapi jika kesannya amat terhad kerana tidak memadai (mengikut analis MSDW, ABN Amro dl) ia bakal membuat pemimpin negara menjadi semakin bingung.....

KELONGGARAN MASIH KURANG BERKESAN

Ramai analis berpendapat kadar pertumbuhan ekonomi akan merosot lebih rendah (3-4%) dari tanggapan awal (7%). Keyakinan pengguna masih kurang dan potongan KWSP yang dikurangkan hanya mampu untuk membeli beberapa bungkus coklat sahaja. Kelonggaran terhadap pinjaman membeli kereta, saham dan hartanah serta pemansuhan cukai kad kredit cuba merangsang perbelanjaan domestik tetapi itu tidak akan dapat menampung jurang akibat ekspot yang menjunam. (A.S. menyerap 23% ekspot). Satu ketika dulu Rafidah Aziz memberi kenyataan kesan kelembapan ekonomi A.S. adalah begitu minima - sekarang terbukti ia agak maksima sehingga RM3 bilion terpaksa disediakan untuk kekal segar.

"Menurut pakar dari Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co., En Daniel Lian, pakej rangsangan itu masih belum mencukupi kerana "terhad kesannya". Mahathir ingin mengekalkan pertumbuhan ekonomi dengan rangsangan ini tetapi pakej sebegini kerap gagal seperti yang pernah tercatat di Jepun. Lagipun projek yang kontroversial seperti Bakun masih ingin diteruskan. Memang kerajaan menyediakan payung tetapi masalahnya hujan yang bakal datang itu akan menerbangkan semua yang berpayung. Lihatlah apa yang berlaku di Jepun. Ekspot keretanya kini sudah mula menurun.....

MEMULIH ATAU MENUNDA KEMELESETAN EKONOMI?

Kerajaan sebenarnya belum memulihkan ekonomi pada akar dan umbi. Ia cuma menganjakkan kesan dengan bon dan dana awam sebagai benteng penghalang. Bon-bon yang dikeluarkan itu akan semakin matang tetapi kita semakin kepupusan wang luar mahupun dalam. Lapuran AP/Reuters menyebut rezab antarabangsa susut lebih RM1 bilion dalam masa dua minggu sahaja bulan ini. Kita cuma mampu menampung 4 1/2 bulan impot.

Kerajaan kini meninggikan had pinjaman bank untuk membeli saham dan menyertai skim amanah. Soalnya siapa yang mahu membeli jika keuntungan semakin merosot melainkan untuk berjudi? Adakah kerajaan ingin meramaikan pembunuh diri dan penagih dadah lagi? Atau mahu mencetus satu lagi tragedi 'Kg Medan' di dunia koporat pula nanti?

Lama-lama semua kekayaan akan terhilang kerana terpaksa membayar hutang dan bon yang tertunggak.Apakah rakyat Malaysia mahu menunggu Malaysia hancur dulu sebelum bertindak? Lihatlah Indonesia yang begitu sukar dipulihkan kerana membiarkan Suharto memerintah terlalu lama. Pengerusi IBRAnya (Edwin Gerungan) merasa bosan mengendalikannya kerana terlalu banyak kemusnahan walaupun dia dulu seorang pegawai bank yang amat cemerlang. [Rujuk Siri: KM2 "Tugas Yang Membosankan"TAG MT 34-37] Malaysia nampaknya mengorak langkah yang serupa.

Selamat berduka semua di hari muka!!

- TJr Kapal Berita-

Rencana sandaran:

The Financial Times, UK
28th March 2001

Malaysia unveils stimulus package

By Sheila McNulty in Singapore

Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia's prime minister, on Tuesday unveiled a M$3bn ($790m) fiscal stimulus package and other measures to buffer the economy from the slowdown in the US, a key export market. Analysts doubted it would be enough to help.

The package includes building new schools and housing for the armed forces while granting agriculture subsidies. In addition, Dr Mahathir said workers' contribution to the Employees Provident Fund, the mandatory national pension fund, will be reduced by 2 per cent for one year to promote spending.

A tax on credit cards will be abolished. Incentives will be provided to encourage buying cars and property. And banks have been ordered to achieve annual loan growth of 8 per cent - a call they have ignored in the past.

Dr Mahathir said growth would be revised to between 4 and 5 per cent, from a projection of 7 per cent. Malaysia's economy grew 8.5 per cent last year.

The country is highly dependant on the US to buy electronics exports - a fact that helped it rebound from the regional financial crisis of 1997. But analysts say the US downturn has come before Malaysia completely turned around its own economy. Consumer confidence already is weakening. Corporate profits are below expectations.

Analysts doubted the stimulus would change that. "It's a really insignificant, small package," said Phoa Su Sian, Malaysian-based analyst for ABN Amro Asia Securities. She said the M$1.7bn cut in contributions to the pension fund, the part that gives money straight to consumers, would allow the average worker to keep M$14 per month - enough to buy "a few chocolate bars."

Following a string of government bail-outs of well-connected companies, analysts suspected the effort would be seen as "insulting". The government paid M$1.79bn alone to buy Malaysia Airlines in the most contentious such deal - one widely criticised as a bail-out of Tajudin Ramli, who has close ties to leaders. The price - what Mr Tajudin paid for the stake in 1994 - was more than double the current market value despite Malaysia Airlines' more than US$2bn in debt.

"In any country, fiscal packages don't work. The most obvious example is Japan," said Kostas Panagiotou, senior economist at Kim Eng Securities. He predicted Malaysia's growth would slow to 3.6 per cent this year, irrespective of what the authorities do: "The global economy is slowing and they cannot protect themselves from that."

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The Asian Wall Street Journal
28th March 2001

Malaysia Plans to Spend $789.5 Million To Soften Effects of U.S. Economic Ills

By LESLIE LOPEZ

Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad unveiled an economic plan, including a three billion ringgit ($789.5 million) fiscal stimulus package, aimed at cushioning Malaysia against a weakening U.S. economy.

But economists said the bold plan isn't expected to soon lead to a rush of foreign investment, a vital ingredient for sustained economic growth.

"The plan will help bring back the feel-good factor which is now lacking," said Nicholas Tan of Merrill Lynch Securities in Kuala Lumpur. Still, echoing a view held by several private economists, Mr. Tan noted that economic policies aimed at "stimulating demand often dull sentiment among foreign investors who advocate pain before gain."

The Malaysian stock market reacted coldly to Dr. Mahathir's latest economic initiative. The benchmark Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange Composite Index fell 5.80 points to 663.47, its third consecutive day of decline. The index rose to 673.41 in morning trading after Dr. Mahathir's comments but later succumbed to selling pressure on fears of weaker corporate earnings in the weeks ahead.

Malaysia is particularly vulnerable to any economic downturn in the U.S., which last year imported goods, mainly electronic products, equivalent to about 23% of the country's 339 billion ringgit economic output at current prices.

Several private economists recently slashed their economic growth forecasts for Malaysia to between 3.5% and 5% this year, adjusted for inflation, mostly because of an anticipated weaker U.S. economy. Previously, they were looking for the economy to expand by between 5.5% and 7%.

On Tuesday, Dr. Mahathir said that this year's economic growth rate may fall below the 7% expansion the government had originally forecast because of the slower U.S. economy. Last year, the Malaysian economy expanded by 8.5%. (The country's central bank will release its annual report on Wednesday, detailing the outlook for the Malaysian economy.)

"The government has to take pre-emptive measures to ensure the growth momentum is sustained," Dr. Mahathir told a media conference at the Parliament building in Kuala Lumpur. He added that the just-announced fiscal stimulus package will add 1.1 percentage points to this year's rate of growth in gross domestic product, the market value of goods and services a nation produces.

Dr. Mahathir didn't elaborate, but private economists such as Daniel Lian of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. in Singapore believe that the fiscal impetus will add only between 0.7 and 0.9 percentage point to GDP growth this year. "Malaysia's monetary policy isn't accommodating. That is why the income multiplier from the stimulus package will be limited," Mr. Lian said.

Several brokers and analysts had been expecting a cut in interest rates as an added booster to the country's fiscal pump-priming initiatives. Many had speculated that the central bank would cut the key three-month intervention rate, which currently stands at 5.5%, by as much as a half-percentage point. But Dr. Mahathir shot down those expectations, saying that the country's rates already were low. "At the moment, we feel it is not necessary [to cut rates]," he told reporters.

The three billion ringgit in additional funds, which comes on top of 28.8 billion ringgit in spending measures contained in the budget handed down last October, will go toward building schools and universities and financing projects such as the controversial Bakun hydroelectric dam on Borneo in Sarawak state.

Other measures announced by Dr. Mahathir Tuesday included some to boost consumer spending. He said that workers' contributions to the Employees Provident Fund, the country's largest pension fund, will be cut to 9% from 11%, providing Malaysian workers with a slightly higher take-home pay. He also announced the abolishment of a 50 ringgit tax on credit cards, which was introduced in 1997 and borne by individual credit-card holders.

Further, Dr. Mahathir announced that the central bank might relax a ceiling on the amount of loans banks can extend to borrowers for stocks and unit trust, or mutual fund, purchases. In addition, the government also set a target of 8% loan growth for financial institutions during 2001.

Write to Leslie Lopez at leslie.lopez@awsj.com

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http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/money/story/0,1870,32033,00.html?

Straits Times Singapore

24 Mar 2001

KL foreign reserves plummet by S$470m

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia's international reserves slumped by more than RM1 billion (S$470.5 million) in the first two weeks of this month.

The central bank said on Thursday that its gold, foreign exchange and other reserves stood at RM109.05 billion as at March 15, down from RM110.17 billion a fortnight earlier.

Bank Negara said in a statement that the US dollar equivalent of the international reserves fell to US$28.7 billion (S$51.3 billion) in the middle of this month, against US$28.99 billion at the end of last month.

The central bank said its total assets and liabilities were at RM143.68 billion against RM144.8 billion two weeks earlier.

Government officials said reserve levels can finance 4 1/2 months of retained imports, and there was no pressure to alter the ringgit's peg to the US dollar.