Malaysia an economic threat to Singapore??

Innocent_Malaysian SG

the richest country in South east asia after singapore is probably Malaysia.
Do you think malaysia will take over spore as the regional economic power??
BTW, who thinks msia is gonna be a developed country b4 2020??

brotherlone SG

its definately possible without complacent malays

anything is possible

tripwire SG

The next richest nation is brunei.. not malaysia...

Future Regional economic power??? you mean indonesia, thailand or phillipine??
Mr. Green

little1 SG

with the bumi’s still getting /begging for handouts from the government, IMPOSSIBLE.

Dolce Vita SG

if you are measuring richness with the GDP per capita of each country, brunei could even win all the countries in SEA, because of its oil. besides, did you forget about the megapower, Japan?

singapore does not even dare to claim herself to be a developed countries, simply because she will lose out a lot of benefits if she does so. besides, a developed country has a lot of criterias, i won't judge whether malaysia will become a developed country. the status itself is not important, it's more of the society itself.

yesyes, malaysia may win singapore simply because.. recently the 'evergreen' project will taken away from singapore to malaysia. but! 'evergreen' is actually moving part of his shipping lines back to singapore because of PSA's good port service, unlike malaysia who has got less berths than singapore. besides.. if malaysia wants to move on, i think they should stop being biased to the malays, and show equality to every group of ethical groups in the society. furthermore, i believe that, malaysia still has a long way to go, just like singapore, to establish a very stable economy and society.

need i say more? singapore's biggest enemy is the world itself, especially when China enters WTO.. it's another issue once again. in terms of cost-competitiveness, many countries would lose out to China, as it currently still has abundance of resources. Smile

Orcishwarrior SG

Each individual knows that ok!! then y do u think we are going globalisation,Singapore governement is encouraging us to explore the world and not stick to homeland but of course la at least establish your HQ here la if u success in business oversea.
Malaysia is for real going all out to compete with us we can already feel it present,but surely we are not going to say na take all u want!!!

something i could understand Y singapore cant acquire foreign lands and develop it...most of the problems will be solve including land shortages......housing problem.....maybe we might lucky lucky find raw material like oil for example.Ok i understand this will involve lots of political turmoil between the seller and the buyer but i believe $ is almost everything in this world.Indonasia is a good location specially riaus island it is petty rich in resources and indonasia needs cash right.It is a bit naive to start it,i still say it is possible accept lots of work nad $$ involve at present singapore GDP and Reserve lots can be done Rolling Eyes Laughing

surferboy SG

Anithing can happen you know...
who knows one day Indonesia may even be richer than us...
i'll personally not be surprised if S'pore loses out to its neighbours...
We are still in this race for survival...
How well we do now will affect our future....
Mr. Green

Innocent_Malaysian SG

why does everyone here deny the facts???

bigballs11 SG

Not to pour cold water la, but ASEAN countries must have a macroscopic view of the current economy and situation.

Yes, Malaysia may boast boleh this boleh that at this POINT of time, but in due time (lets say 5 years time), it will be seen as a high cost manufacturing base, unless Malaysian is willing to accept less and less pay and more stringent currency curd. The current economic model of Malaysia is basically a direct copy of Singapore model (undenial fact). It main economy rely heavily on foreign investment, aka as a cheap manufacturing base, but in view of other even cheaper, more abundance cheap manpower/cost-centre manufacturing base say China and Vietnam. How can Malaysia with ever increasing manufacturing cost compete?!? Facts already show that plants are moving out of Singapore and Malaysia to cheaper places in China and Vietnam. Sooner or later the AMD athlon/intel chip will show ASSEMBLED IN CHINA/VIETNAM.

In short timespan, Malaysia will also go the same route as what Singapore is experiencing now, unless it tansform itself totally into a new economic model. BTW don't rely on too much on palm oil as the commondity price is going south for the last decade. Also no need to bet too much dream as a transport hub as China become an even more important manufacturing base they will expand their own seaport/airport and do direct shipping from there, bypassing traditional seaport hubs, like what Taiwan sea/airport is experiencing now.

Shocked

k210983 SG

Kiss my ass Malaysia
Malaysia is probably jealous of Singapore success.
They want a bigger piece of the pie, see they try to open all these ports to compete with Singapore.
But they can't get this piece of pie. no way dude. So they try to do all those silly little things.
Keep your miserable water to yourselves.
I rather drink new water then beg Malaysia for water.
Singapore is a sleeping dragon.
We are quiet and don't make such a big fuss now.
But kick us around and u will face our wrath.
You have been warned
Evil or Very Mad

silkmagic SG

There is no doubt that Malaysia can become an economic power with it abundant natural resources (why water is even a commodity to them which they can sell for cash :lol Smile However it will require more than natural resources to become an economic power.

The country infrastructure (econonmic, social, education, financial) must first be in place.

- Economicwise, Malaysia is still more argriculture based than other forms of economic progress. This is not neccessary a bad thing but they will need to be more efficient and intuned with the world trend.

- Socially, there should not be any difference between bumiputra and other races.

- Education, most of the subjects are still taught in Malay and please can anyone tell me how many people in this world speaks Berhasa Malay

- After the Asian crisis, Malaysia financial sector has yet to gain the confidence of investors.

So unless all these factors are carefully addressed and implemented than we might have a hope that it will become an economic power as there is no guarantee success in this world.

Dolce Vita SG

what facts?

East_Works SG

[/b]
Agreed Smile Unless the Malaysian government get their act together,they may have to wait beyond 2020 to become a developed nation as stated by Innocent Malaysian.

kenhor SG

Singapore has been complacent. Its not that Malaysia has "suddenly" become the next ASEAN superpower. Its just that we have not progressed up the value chain fast enough.

Take for example our entire economy. What are the pillars. We have electonics manufacturing, entreport shipping, tourism, banking, R&D (just started) and retail.

Each of these sectors is under competition from Malaysia. Shipping they have Northport, Westport and PTP. Tourism, they are now able to be a niche market for Arabs. Manufacturing, just visit penang .. plenty of MNC factories there. Retail, they have sales 3 times a year. Banking .. we may have 400 banks (international) but they have a bigger client base and also an off short banking centre. (not to mention, ambitions to develop the world number 1 islamic banking centre)

On top of that, they have already started on the road to develop Education as a top revenue earner, with the number of overseas universitites setting shop. And they have Oil exports, a car industry, F1 race, Palm oil, rubber, tin and pepper.

We are still stuck on first gear .. all of our industries (except for R&D in bioscience) was around during the time of independance in 1965.

They are an economic threat due to us not moving up fast enough... dare we just have wishful thinking that their Malay problems will hold them back? We better pull up our socks and move on, before we cause our own downfall.

euphratis SG

u can say that again. being many time bigger (M) than Singapore in terms of population, land attractions & natural resources. I wonder why are they still behind Singapore. How a tiny little red dot humble a giant? Laughing

just show how productive is their ratio to Singaporean...... Mr. Green

btw, they have been a threat ever since i was born...... threat to the economy (protitudes) in geylang ... cheaper in KL, local or foreign oso hv.

Riko SG

w/o Mahathir it is very hard to say. It might be positive if they open up equal opportunity for non-bumiputera. More and more non-bumiputera talents is moving the country, w/o this group of people it is very difficult for the country to be developed as a developed country b4 2020 Exclamation

laser51088 SG

i think malaysia will be a developed come 2020. They are trying to open many sectors of industry now, manufacturing, trade, etc... and their Tanjong Pelapas already score 2 VERY well publicised victories..

However, i do not think Singapore gonna hang around and say, here, have all my clients and business. Singapore's gonna fight back for every inch of the market. Fr example, the IT market getting a wee bit too much already, Singapore branching out into life science, which is a very wide but expensive-to-start industry. However, Singapore is already pouring its funds into the industry and already got so many big names here. From the current outlook, it is very hard not to succeed in the life science industry(unless no one in singapore want to work in it)

And for those who say Singapore not developed, how come go for International Scout Jamboree a few years back Singapore scout gotta pay extra... (for those who dun understand, scouts from countries such as US, Britain, Singapore, Japan, and other developed countries have to pay extra to help sponsor the event and fellow scouts from poorer countries, and i didn't go for that if you r wondering, just that i was a scout then, back in primary school)

Orcishwarrior SG

some stuff like I.T and biotechnology i doubt they will be able to do so these sector requires its population to be highly educated
to be able to fit into these sectors
They are dreaming,i think they are blinded trying to compete with singapore.I m doubtful that it multimedia corridor will be success
I.T and biotech industries are man for developed countries which have the resource to provide quality equipment and service to researchers and engineers these can be quite costly in some aspect
any comment

Orcishwarrior SG

sorrie i doubt their multimedia corridor will succeed

kenhor SG

To euphratis

China's economy divided by its land and population also is less than Malaysia .. but no one doubts in the future that it will be the biggest in the world .. While Malaysia is actually underpopulated compared to Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia .. and there can be greater growth potential compared to Singapore.

They are probably 1-2 years behind Singapore .. but each time they improve, we end up looking bad.

To laser51088

Singapore should have moved on to more capital intensive industries long ago. However, due to the complacency of the current PAP government (i.e sleeping rabbit vs slow and steady tortoise) we have allowed the Malaysians to catch up.

To Orcishwarrior

Multimedia Super Corridor version 1 was a failure. That model seeked to compete head on with Singapore as the regional HQ for all the MNCs.

MSC version 2 is a newer, less grand model. It seeks to "quietly" take away regional HQs from Singapore of companies that do lots of business in Malaysia. E.g DHL, Shell, Exxonmobil, BMW, GE all have shifted or will be shifting datacentres to Cyberjaya soon.

We may not be wanting to sit still and let them take away our business .. but face facts. Its NOT our decision. Its the decision of the MNCs who decide where to invest. Problem is that our small 3+1 million population is too small to sustain any business. With all these MNCs adopting a go-direct-to-customer model, the importance and reliance of Singapore will be diminished each coming year.

In Summary

Malaysia has become a threat to Singapore because we have never been an end-user. We are just a transhipment point. We have plenty of FDI because we are the best of the lot and there was no alternative. But now, there is an alternative .. so there is a threat to our existance.

Socially, we are already taking a big hit as the income gap between the elites and the middle class is growing. While our neighbours middle class is growing. They have got cars and houses. They have got plenty to eat. They have got political choice. Not bad for a third world country.

Economically, the Malaysians are able to surprise many by the sheer dedication of making progress in many fields.

The traditional industry of Malaysia was that of tin, rubber and palm oil. Indeed, the GLOBAL trading centre of the 3 commodities is in KL. But they have now branced out into tourism, car manufacturing, banking, IT & electronics and education. And these happened within the last 20 years. We have lost all our head start

If Malaysia was in Europe, it would have been admited into the EU. Its economy is definately better than Hungary and Romania and those two are next to be admitted.