The positives in Malaysia 2014 I was going to write a 2015 new years statement like PM Najib, Anwar, LGE etc.. most of them focussed more on the negatives of 2014 (lost planes, floods) but touched very little on the positives of Malaysia in 2014. Then I realized that I am not a politician nor public figure (and plus, procrastination means I missed the deadline to consider as new years statement) so i decided to just list down as much as I can remember instead of writing a long boring speech. So, what did Malaysia do right in 2014? Have a look: 1) Despite people worrying that bibles will be burnt, no actual bibles were burned. Ironically, a Koran was burned by a mad-man. tinyurl/n2m4ttp 2) Nielsen world survey reveals Malaysia Malaysia posting the third highest level of car ownership globally (93%) and the highest incidence of multiple car ownership globally (54% of households have more than one car) tinyurl/le2sja8 3) Domestic and foreign investments into Malaysia reaches yet another record high. tinyurl/n4opseg 4) Malaysia achieved stellar GDP growth of 5.7% in 2014 - beating earlier expectations of 5%. In fact, in the first half of 2014, our GDP growth of 6.3% was among the highest in the world. tinyurl/nvpgykz 5) Despite lower oil prices, Malaysia is still expected to achieve GDP growth of 4.7% to 5.5% in 2015 - which is higher than the 4.6% growth in 2013. 6) PKFZ reaches 100% occupancy and becomes profitable and cashflow positive: tinyurl/mtc4oet 7) Malaysias CPI corruption ranking under Transparency International continues to improve ever since PM Najib took over and has reached an all-time high ranking of 50th out of 170 countries. tinyurl/lyw4adl 8) The World Bank Group Doing business report for 2014 finds that Malaysia further improved its business environment over the past year. The country continues to rank among the top 20 economies worldwide and is now NUMBER ONE among emerging economies in East Asia on the ease of doing business. tinyurl/ppjuo65 9) The powerful World Economic Forums Global Competitiveness Report 2014-2015 shows Malaysia rose four places - putting us in 20th place out of 144 economies which is our best performance ever and the highest ranked among the developing Asian economies. In fact, Malaysia ranked 26th out of 144 places in the ethics and corruption component of the WEF index, our best performance ever. Malaysia stands out as one of the very few countries that have been relatively successful at tackling these two issues, as part of its economic and government transformation programmes. tinyurl/k2peqc3 10) Our Debt-to-GDP ratio dropped for the first time under PM Najib from 54.7% at end 2013 to 52.8% in end June 2014. tinyurl/mjxxk63 (Malaysia still not bankrupt yet despite DAP and PAS saying it will go bankrupt 30-40 years ago). 11) Car prices in Malaysia for most popular models dropped 9-29%in 2014 amidst another good year for car sales and our local manufacturers released two great new models, the Perodua Axia and Proton Iriz that are receiving tremendous demand and bookings. tinyurl/nom4xaj 12) In 2014, income equality improves in Malaysia and the ratio of wages or compensation of employees (CE) to GDP increased from 29.3% in 2008.to 33.6% in 2013. - tinyurl/pl6c93q 13) Malaysia continues to have either 3 (some say 2) out of the top 10 biggest shopping malls in the world - One Utama, MidValley and Sunway Pyramid and aircon in the malls is still FREE! tinyurl/kdqz979 14) Despite twin air tragedies in MH370 and MH17, tourist arrivals in Malaysia remains robust and may end this year with another record. tinyurl/ko59l7g 15) The opening of KLIA2 terminal, which shares the same airport code as KLIA1 means that Malaysia currently has the largest airport in the world. 16) Malaysia is now ranked the best place in Asia and the 4rh best place in the world to retire to: tinyurl/l9xcjre 17) The govt finally made the hard but very necessary decision to eliminate fuel subsidies and ended up still being the 18th cheapest petrol and 20th cheapest diesel in the world: tinyurl/oapqndd 18) Despite weakening against the USD and the Singapore dollar in 2014, our Ringgit Malaysia appreciated against the Euro, the British Pound, the Aussie Dollar and the Japanese Yen. tinyurl/nzow9p3 19) Since Najib took over, Malaysia had reduced our dependence on oil money from 40% in 2009 to 28% in 2013 and supposed to be less in 2014 and aloing with our hgih forex reserves, helps in sheltering Malaysia from the worst impacts of a falling global oil price. tinyurl/mn9se5y 20) Malaysias Battersea project in the UK continues to achieve record-breaking sales and establishes Malaysia as the number one property developer in the UK - a project that is bound to generate tens of billions of profit for Malaysian companies, Sime Darby, govt majority owned SP Setia and also for EPF. tinyurl/lc4x3yt 21) After raising interest rates for the first time in years and govt implementing various cooling-measures in 2014, Malaysias household debt has been put under control and default risk of borrowers here has finally gone on a steady decline. tinyurl/lktf9qe 22) Despite lots of rhetoric and noise and media reports about extremism in Malaysia, no actual churches got destroyed, no one got killed or even injured from race or religion-motivated attacks in Malaysia in 2014. In fact, there was no race or religious riots at all. No cow-heads were also dragged to any mosque or temple. 23) Pakatans Ketua Umum Anwar Ibrahim finally demonstrated a full recovery from a serious and crippling back and spinal injury by going mountain-biking in New Zealand during the Christmas holidays of 2014 despite expert medical opinion a mere 2 years ago saying it was chronic and rendering him unable to sodomize anyone in the past..Congrats to Anwar Ibrahim! tinyurl/ovklgly 24) Penang CM and DAP head Lim Guan Eng finally got a brand new Toyota Camry and then a brand new Mercedes S-Class in 2014 - a car he said that he deserves. Congrats to Lim Guan Eng! 25) Perak DAP leader and MP for Taiping Nga Kor Ming finally completed his big white house in Ipoh (cheap! and does not even cost RM10 million)and he and his family moved in during August 2014. Congrats to Nga Kor Ming! tinyurl/ousm79e 26) Malaysia holds on to its crown of being the fattest country in South East Asia and among the fattest in Asia. Nearly 45% of Malaysian men and almost half of women are overweight or obese, according to a 2013 study by UK medical journal Lancet, compared to global rates of around 30% This clearly proves that Malaysians dont eat grass and sand OR that Malaysias grass and sand is very high in nutritional value: Congratulations to Malaysians and to Nasi Lemak! tinyurl/knyklqn 27) LSS still not identified and beaten-up by PPS yet although my FB friend Ong Eu Soon was beaten up by PPS. tinyurl/noxhdwp (list may be extended as I remember more).
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 08:36:08 +0000