Bukan saya yang cakap, tetapi pakar ekonomi negara yang teramat ulung, saudara kita ini
Apa dia kata?
"We are not moving towards an economic downturn despite sentiment for global economic growth being clouded by concerns over the US interest rate hike and slowdown in China's economy", said Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs Chief Executive Wan Saiful Wan Jan.
He said the country has been depressed by external factors, including low oil prices, for two to three years now and thus, was not expecting things to get worse.
"In the Malaysian context, our country is still considered attractive to investors even though the degree of appeal might be smaller. The country is still registering growth despite the fact that it is not growing as fast as we want, but not declining very badly either."We are recovering from an economic downturn," he told Bernama.
He said the country has been depressed by external factors, including low oil prices, for two to three years now and thus, was not expecting things to get worse.
"In the Malaysian context, our country is still considered attractive to investors even though the degree of appeal might be smaller. The country is still registering growth despite the fact that it is not growing as fast as we want, but not declining very badly either."We are recovering from an economic downturn," he told Bernama.
link here
I must admit, I am a bit confused. First, he said "We are not moving towards an economic downturn", but later, he argued that "We are recovering from an economic downturn" .
Unless our Cik Wan Saiful has been sleeping, which I don't think that's the case since he's been shooting from the hip re TPPA (his other blunder, but that's for another day), he is probably aware that the a revised budget will be announced soon taking into account lower oil revenue.
Given that crude oil and natural gas sector is one of the key driver for the Malaysian economy, the drop in oil prices would have
serious negative implication to us. The oil price has been droppin like a brick. As of yesterday, it has fallen by nearly 40% from the government’s
assumption of US$48. We lose about USD290m for every one dollar drop in oil prices.
But dont worry people, Cik Wan says "We are not moving towards an economic downturn....not expecting things to get worse".
Now I seriously think he must be sleeping past one week.
The impact on the economy is clear. growth will be lower. Let's look at the indicators:
The impact on the economy is clear. growth will be lower. Let's look at the indicators:
1. number of unemployed up 22% in Oct, and 11% in Nov. The December figures will be out tmrw. It wont be pretty. No job no money. No money no spending. Not surprising that the consumer confidence is at 10-year low. This is worse than during the Global Financial crisis of 2007/8.
2. When ppl dont spend, businesses wont expand. Retail sales down. The Retail Group Malaysia (RGM) has cut its forecast for retail sales five times so far. Business sentiment also not that fantastic, negative for the past 2 quarters.
Can we depend on exports? Not really. Our trading partners not doing too well either. Last Tuesday, IMF cut its global growth forecast. China is slowing down, in fact, it's 2015 economic growth slumps to a 25-year low. Oil prices remains weak. In fact, Standard Chartered and oil giant BP think that it is ""not impossible" for the price of oil to reach $10 a barrel.
Cik Wan, please wake up.
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