Thursday 29 June 2017

Najib Razak. Flying Without Wings

Is the early 2000 hit by Westlife. Najib Razak is Malaysia's most maligned and underated prime minister.

He has liberalised the economy like no other prime minister before him had done, moved the economy from being over dependent on oil revenue, and basically help digitalise the economy.

Yet, he has got tangled up in the 1MDB scandal, hence not many people inside Malaysia has given him much credit, for what this man has been doing for the economy.

Foreigners are however pouring their support by voting with their money, as ploughing in record numbers into Malaysia.

Bloomberg has the story, (read below), but is Najib Razak and Malaysia *flying without wings*?:

Malaysian assets are back in favour as investors focus on encouraging signs of an economic turnaround instead of a scandal that has touched the top of government and as far as Hollywood.

The stark shift means that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who has weathered political attacks and protests going back to 2015 over allegations involving state-owned 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), may call an early election to cement his hold on power.

The ringgit is easily the strongest major Asian currency this quarter, climbing more than twice as much as the next best, the Chinese yuan. Global funds have bought the most Malaysian stocks year-to-date since the same period in 2013, and net inflows to the bond market surged in April and May.

Malaysia has been rocked by far-reaching investigations into investment fund 1MDB, yet double-digit acceleration in the country’s exports has lifted the economy, which grew 5.6 per cent on-year in the first  quarter, the most since early 2015.

“With improving macro-economic conditions in Malaysia, we became more positive in mid-2017 for the general Malaysia outlook, although there are still political and corruption concerns,” said Hakan Aksoy, a fund manager at Pioneer Investment Management Ltd., which oversees US$244 billion (RM1.08 trillion) globally.

“As long as we see improvement on the macro data with the support of global conditions and stable energy prices, we will keep our cautiously positive stance for Malaysia,” London-based Aksoy said.