[Kami berpendapat ekonomi tidak akan memulih pada 2002 kerana Amerika, Jepun dan Eropah kini masih belum menemui apakah punca sebenar kemelesetan. Amerika dan Jepun misalnya masih melakukan eksperimen (percubaan) dengan polisi tetapi setakat ini semuanya tidak menjadi. Perlu diingatkan di sini kedua-dua kerajaan Jepun dan Amerika sekarang adalah kerajaan (mentah?) yang baru dilantik dalam sedikit kontroversi dan dalam harapan pengundi yang terlalu meninggi.

Kesemua negara ini adalah pembeli barangan Malaysia dan ada melabur di sini. Bayangkan Jepun sekarang menghadapi pengangguran yang kronik (45 tahun rekod) yang belum pernah disaksikan sebelum ini... manakala indeks Nikkei jatuh ke paras 17 tahun terendah.

"Last week some of Japan's best-known high-tech corporations, including Toshiba Corp., Fujitsu Ltd. and NEC Corp., announced layoffs totaling 40,000 employees. Hitachi Ltd. reportedly plans to lay off 20,000 employees." - IHT 29/08/2001.

Kita mahu lihat bagaimana menteri kewangan Malaysia yang dikatakan amat berwawasan itu menghadapi masalah kronik yang bakal melanda ..... jika beliau tersasar sudah pasti orang Umno sendiri akan menyumpah seranah kepadanya nanti....
- Editor]

http://203.106.41.14/article.cfm?id=7175

Daily Edge Exclusives

M'sia likely to hit recession before recovery in 2002

By Joycelyn Lee, 6.31pm 28/08/2001

Malaysia is likely to see negative growth for the remaining two quarters of the year, with the worst economic numbers likely to emerge in the third quarter, before experiencing a recovery next year, said Commerce Trust Bhd chief executive Yeoh Keat Seng.

Dismissing the possibility of a sharp turnaround by the end of the year, Yeoh said the country's economy is only expected to recover by the first to second quarter of next year, in tandem with a projected recovery in the US economy next year.

He added that although Malaysia was better cushioned than Singapore to weather the downturn, it would still be adversely affected as both countries export to similar markets.

"Singapore's recent export numbers were horrifying... and if Singapore was heading for a major downturn, Malaysia is likely to follow suit," Yeoh said.

Singapore's economic outlook turned bleaker when its government announced last month that its manufacturing output had fallen by a sharper-than-expected 16.1 per cent in June, confirming that the island economy would post negative growth for 2001.

The city state's electronics sector sank 26 per cent year-on-year, whacked by the global downturn in technology demand and the slowdown in the US, Singapore's second largest trading partner.

Yeoh also said although Malaysia's economy was still holding up, there have been concerns about the country's debt level. He added that the country's debt-to-GDP ratio was still low but the gap was widening.

However, he added that the government's recent efforts to clean out debt from the system as well as its moves to speed up corporate restructuring have found favour with foreign investors, who are beginning to view Malaysia in a positive light again.

On the banking sector, Yeoh expects that the industry's non-performing loans would most likely peak early to mid next year, when the economy is recovering, due to the time lag and the banks' classifications of NPLs.

However, he said it was unlikely that the banking sector's NPLs would hit 1997 crisis levels due to the efforts of national recapitalisation agency Danamodal Nasional Bhd.

Yeoh also expects more foreign interest in the Malaysian market next year, upon the recovery of the US economy, as investors are expected to once again turn their attention to undervalued investments in emerging markets.

http://www.bizedge.com.my/article.cfm?id=7176

Daily Edge Exclusives

MAEI: Electronics sector to bottom out in 3Q

By Thomas Soon, 6.57pm 28/08/2001

American electronics companies in Malaysia expect the downturn in the industry that includes the semiconductor sector, to bottom out by the third quarter; and see the beginning of positive quarter-to-quarter growth by the fourth quarter.

The Malaysian-American Electronics Industry (MAEI) that is an industry group of the American Malaysian Chamber of Commerce said that its 18 member companies had reported a gradual pick-up in sales over the last three months.

"We expect a positive quarter-to-quarter growth of less than 10 per cent during the fourth quarter," MAEI chairman Teh Chin Bin said at a news conference on Aug 28. However, he said that positive year-to-year growth was only likely to be seen next year.

Teh added that a turnaround in the US would be almost immediately felt by companies operating in Malaysia because they were closely linked to the US and the global economy.

MAEI president Nicholas Zeffreys said that the close linkage between the Malaysian economy and the global economy was exemplified by the fact that Dell computers produced locally were directly shipped to the customers in the US and around the world.

For the year as a whole, MAEI had forecast its member companies' sales and exports to drop by 11.8 per cent to RM38.7 billion in view of the global downturn in the electronics sector.

Last year, the companies exported a combined RM43.9 billion worth of products or 14.2 per cent of the country's gross exports of manufactured goods. The 23 per cent hike over 1999 came from a hefty increase in exports of non-semiconductor products.

Zeffreys said that another indicator of the industry bottoming out was a significant decline in inventories that had been built up during the Y2K and dotcom bubble in 2000.

"All the write-offs and lay-offs in the US mean that the companies are going to come back with strengths. Earnings per share, while they dropped dramatically, are positioned to start increasing in 2002.

"The president of the American Semiconductor Association said that the industry has grown 17 per cent a year compounded over the last 40 years. It has dropped but it is going to continue back to trend at least until 2015," said Zeffreys.

MAEI also expects total investments from its member companies to be RM1.8 billion in 2001, compared with RM2.6 billion in 2000. In 1999, investments stood at RM1.9 billion.

MAEI companies spent RM228 million on research and development (R&D) in 2000, a 56 per cent increase from the previous year. R&D expenditure for this year is expected to reach RM251 million.

The industry employed 56,000 people last year. With increased automation and the relocation of some low-end operations, employment is expected to decline to 50,400 in 2001.