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Comment (World Foreign Investment Report released by the United Nations this month delivered some shocking news: Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Malaysia plunged 81% last year, leaving us trailing behind Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Ironically, our FDI outflow is rather high. We rank fifth in the list of South Asian, East Asian and Southeast Asian countries investing abroad. This is nothing to cheer about. To quote Tony Pua, an opposition MP and chief economist for DAP, "Not only are foreign investors unwilling to invest in Malaysia, our own local investors as well as foreign investors who are already in the country have a total lack of confidence in the ability of our economy to generate an attractive return to their investments."
No doubt, negative reports are political fodder for opposition politicians, and Pua is obviously exaggerating when he uses words like "a total lack of confidence", but there is some truth to what he says. FDI is a solid...
