Should we worry about the state of the economy? Our government have assured us that this country would be spared from the global recession and we have the safeguards to ensure we wouldn't be caught with our pants down.Do you believe them? Is there something they know that we don't? Surprisingly, even the Governor of Bank Negara had confidently said that there wouldn't be a recession in Malaysia.
How much money have the government spent to prop up the ringgit and the stocks market? Without intervention the ringgit would have depreciated much more against the US dollar.All major currencies except the Japanese Yen have depreciated against the dollar.The ringgit had no reason to stay at its present level other than two possibilities..... our export receipts have increased tremendously where we convert US dollars to ringgit or more likely Bank Negara is spending our money to prop up the ringgit.The latter sounds more plausible.
Below are US dollar against ringgit and other major currencies for July/Nov 2008:
US$1.00 to:
British Pound - July 0.49 Nov 0.69 -40.8%
Australian Dollar - July 1.01 Nov 1.53 -51.4%
Euro - July 0.62 Nov 0.80 -35.5%
Ringgit - July 3.26 Nov 3.53 -8.3%
Singapore Dollar - July 1.36 Nov 1.49 -9.6%
Japanese Yen - July 107 Nov 99 +7.5%
From the above you can see that the ringgit is seemingly a strong currency, is it ? The ringgit had also appreciated against other major currencies not because of its own strength but more due to the depreciation of those currencies against the dollar.I expect the ringgit to find its own level when the intervention stopped.
The bull run on the dollar was mainly due to China propping it up to protect its huge foreign exchange reserve of US$1.5 trillion in dollars and gold.How long the exercise would prevail is hard to tell.
Below is an article I wrote in January 2008 on the contagious US recession.
Badawi's State Of Euphoria
Written by Hantu Laut | |
Wednesday, 30 January 2008 | |
It’s whistling past the graveyard to think that Malaysia is going to escape a US downturn unscathed
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is probably wrong if he is as confident as he says he is that that Malaysia is positioned to avert any negative fallout from a threatened US recession by virtue of trade with the rest of Asean, which on its surface outweighs that of the US. Following the Davos conference in Switzerland, the prime minister pointed out that 86 percent of Malaysia's GDP is domestically generated and added: "This has become one of our economic strengths (as we are no longer acutely dependent on external trade), and these strengths have come from the policies that we have drawn up and implemented, which are far-sighted.”
The small domestic market would not be able to consume excesses from a contracting export market. The major manufactured products for export, especially electronic and electrical products, are not suitable for domestic use. What are Malaysians going to do with a few billion dollars worth of unsold semiconductors, computer chips and other high-technology products? In the same year, export trade with Asean countries was RM154 billion. It is safe to assume that more than 60 percent of exports to Asean countries went to Singapore. Malaysia’s trade with Singapore was MR146.9 billion, making it the second largest trading partner after the U.S. With the exception of Thailand, trade with other Asean countries was insignificant. Lumping Singapore together with other Asean countries to show market diversification is self-deceiving and unjustified. Being the second largest trading partner and for the sake of clarity, Singapore should be classified individually. There also seems to be a great discrepancy between MATRADE figures and those given by an independent body SUITE101.com, which quoted Bridgesingapore.com, usembassy.com and the CIA World Factbook as its sources. The data shows Singapore's total trade with Malaysia in 2006 was US$77 billion. Taking an exchange rate at a constant US$1.00 - RM3.40, trade with Singapore was a whopping RM262 billion, not the RM146.9 billion MATRADE uses, making it the biggest trading partner, bigger than the US. Was the huge difference a result of under- and over-invoicing? It's difficult to say which figures were correct. This can only be established if the external trade corporation were to openly dispute the figures from the other sources.
|
4 comments:
HL
This post, re-post is powerful stuff. Your observation that M'sian exports to Singapore are re-exported to Western client countries is spot on. It's a false comfort to identify ASEAN and other non-Western countries as "new markets" because they are usually involved in re-export directly and indirectly.
Your insight on the timber industry's "tax planning" is also very much on track. Singapore and, to a certain extent, Hong Kong, are the usual jurisdictions for "tax planning" operations.
Good post, bro.
There's another very important reason the US dollar has risen against most other currencies.
Foreigners bought more than $ 1 Trillion dollars of US Treasury bonds in the last few months as the value of stocks, bonds, commodities, oil, property - almost everything you can invest in collapsed.
To buy US Treasury bonds, you need to buy US dollars first, right ?
In spite of the gloom, there is still a lot of money around the world, and they have to park it somewhere. In an environment where even the world's largest insurance company - AIG/ AIA - can collapse, no investment is safe any more.
The market still considers US Treasury bonds - backed by the US Government and the entire US $13 Trillion economy as rock solid.
But I have my doubts. What if the US Government defaults on its debt obligations one day ? I think it will, eventually.
Now that is a scary thought
HL,
Who know's? Maybe Ol Sleepy Head Pak Lah may be correct? Maybe our Fiscal Policies have been very sound & logical (Hahahaheheheheo!)?
And if Pak Lah proves to be right, then when he retires, the US, a few of the EU countries, what the heck, even Singapore should "hire" him as an sdvisor to ensure that their future Fiscal Policies follow Malaysia's!
Pernahtak terfikir kalau beli Australian Dollar sekarang, satu pelaburan baik?
Post a Comment