Abdullah did the right thing, never thought he would have to guts to do it.
REAL inflation is at an all time high, please don't take whatever number reported by Bank Negara as the real inflation cause its bullshit. If the government had not done anything, and continue to subsidize fuel, electricity & commodities, a repeat of 98 would happen. And heck once again Malaysian economy would be left behind compare to the other Asian countries.
Now is the perfect time for the government to cut all subsidies and lift ceiling prices when everyone else in the region is doing it.
It surprise me that Abdullah made such an unpopular BUT NECESSARY move. Kudos goes to him. Although the lay person on the street might not understand it and complain, it was the right thing to do for the Malaysian economy, for the sake of keeping the economy competitive.
There are jokes about our Malaysian fisherman whom gets M$2.5k diesel subsidy a month and instead of fishing, they just sell diesel to Thailand. Our fishermen have forgotten how to fish.And then there is the Independent Power Producers (IPP) whom have a one sided deal with Tenaga Bhd which requires Tenaga to buy electricity from them even when the price is much higher than the cost needed for Tenaga to produce the electricity, or even when Tenaga has ample electricity. All these one sided deals was done under the previous administration. And the contract didn't had a renegotiation clause so the only way to balance things out and be fair is to slap those IPP with windfall taxes. Once again, KUDOS Abdullah.
Overall, all these subsidies cuts and lifting of ceiling price would definitely make Malaysia more competitive.
And which Vietnam being one of the worst performing markets this year (54% drop in their market) and Pakistan suffering too, foreign direct investments (FDI) would definitely increase in Malaysia. But yes people, its burdensome, but in the long-run it will be worth it, a caveat though, the government should be very transparent with where the money from subsidies are going. A good idea is the construction sector as its suffering from high commodity price.
AND BLOODY HELL. TIME TO MAKE PETRONAS STATEMENTS PUBLIC! God knows how much went to Abdullah's and Mathatir's cronies.
Vancouver Island
