Since I am living in Malaysia now, I pay attention to Malaysia’s economy. There are many reasons to be positive but the large consumer and government debt in Malaysia is a serious concern. They do have many administrators that say the right things, the question is going to be whether those statement define policy action or if they are ignored.
Wahid Says Ringgit Too Weak as Growth Improves: Southeast Asia
India and Indonesia have experienced large stock market declines and currency devaluations recently. The Malaysian Ringgit has declines 10% against the US $ in the last 3 months. Malaysia is holding up ok, but is venerable as these international loses of confidence often sweep over countries (and move from country to country).
There is a real risk that the current account could slip into a deficit for the first time since the fourth quarter of 1997, Macquarie Group Ltd. analysts said in a report this month.
“We are aware of this situation and we are aware of some of the measures to be undertaken to make sure that Malaysia remains in a surplus position,” Abdul Wahid said, without elaborating on the steps. “It is still a surplus and we are managing it.”
The surplus is narrowing on increased overseas investment and property buying, higher imports for infrastructure projects, lower palm oil and rubber export prices and the acquisition of new aircraft by Malaysian Airline System Bhd., the minister said.
The main foreign exchange earner recently seems to be selling property, that isn’t a good way to be earning foreign currency (selling assets). It is ok to do this to some extent, but relying on large inflows this way is very risky (and self defeating over the long term if it is too large). Even though palm oil and rubber exports are declining a bit, I believe they are still strong sources of foreign currency so that is good.
Bono (who is fairly well known 🙂 as the lead singer for U2): “Commerce — entrepreneurial capitalism — takes more people out of poverty than aid, of course, we know that.”
That is my belief and something I believe in strongly. Real capitalism will bring people out of poverty. That isn’t the same thing as any businesses will do that. Businesses that use monopolistic powers to extract benefits to themselves and suppress free markets may well do more damage than good. But we will continue to bring more people out of poverty through economic development and capitalism than through aid.
Related: Helping Capitalism Make the World Better – Kiva – Giving Entrepreneurs an Opportunity to Succeed – Dr. Deming’s personal aim was to advance commerce, prosperity and peace – Business 901 Podcast with Me: Deming’s Management Ideas Today – Monopolies and Oligopolies do not a Free Market Make
Medical “tourism” is a potentially huge market. The size of the market is greatly aided by the extremely expensive and broken USA health care system. Even while the standard rich country provides the same, or better, results than the USA for half the cost they are not doing well either (so the USA is very bad compared to pretty bad results for rich countries on average).
Medical tourism is on of the most attractive economic growth areas. However the competition is fairly high as the attractiveness of building such an industry is well known. Countries that have very good potential are: Thailand, Mexico, Malaysia, Singapore (for high end solutions), Costa Rica, India, Philippines and Panama. India has some great advantages but they have a deeply ingrained and extremely unhelpful bureaucracy. It seems to me that that creates a burden that likely means India can’t complete with the others effectively.
Even for the simplest aspect – visas for those seeking to bring income into the country as medical tourists I don’t have confidence India can do well.
Cayman to Singapore Gain as Rules Stump Clinics: Corporate India
“They’ve done everything to ruin our prospects of becoming a tourism center,” Reddy said. “I once said India should become the global health-care destination–now I’m swallowing those words. It could grow 10-fold in the next five years, if only the government would facilitate it, the way others have.”
India continues to be held back economically (across the entire economy not just in health care) by ineffective and burdensome regulation and government inefficiency.
The USA actually has a portion of the medical tourism market – those that have no concern about price (royalty, trust fund babies, movie stars etc.). Those with any concern about price can find the same level of care in Singapore, Japan, France, etc. at a fraction of the price.
I believe 2 or 3 countries in South East Asia will do very well with international medical care. The extent to which Thailand, Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia (and potentially others) do in this field could greatly impact their economic success. There is a great potential for Singapore and Malaysia to cooperate in this area (in Malaysia’s Iskandar region, which borders Singapore).
Related: Traveling To Avoid USA Health Care Costs –
Traveling for Health Care (2007) – Leading Countries for Economic Freedom: Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand…