Competitiveness II

Once again, my previous post on Malaysia’s competitiveness which our beloved Prime Minister claims to be in eighth place in the world is given a smack in the face. This time not by me, by The Star newspaper.

The Star

17 May 2008

Malaysia Improves on Competitiveness Ranking

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia has improved on its world competitiveness ranking in the International Institute for Management Development’s (IMD) World Competitiveness Yearbook 2008 (WCY08).

In a report issued by the IMD on Thursday, Malaysia moved up four spots to 19th place with a score of 73.2 points out of 100.

Last year, Malaysia was ranked 23rd with 74.1 points. The United States maintained its first placing, while Singapore and Hong Kong maintained theirs at second and third respectively.

RAM Holdings Bhd chief economist Dr Yeah Kim Leng said the ranking was a “timely boost” for the economy.

He said the rise was mainly due to significant improvement in the delivery system and other measures taken by the Government to improve efficiency and competition.

He said the country still faced a host of challenges despite moving up the rankings.

Kenanga Investment Bank Bhd economist Wan Suhaimi Saidi said that while the measures taken did have an impact, the ranking only gave a “first impression” to investors.

Despite me taking the rankings from a different source (WEF), WEF found we ranked 21st and the IMD ranked us 23rd, so it isn’t too far apart a dispute. There’s still no where to be found that Malaysia ranked eighth.

How is our Prime Minister going to explain himself? Sadly, this question is going to be unanswered.

Protected: Conversations

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Tibet

DISCLAIMER: This post represents my opinion and mine alone. Be it absurd or ridiculous, you have the choice not to read it. You may post your opinion or any disagreement through the commenting function provided in a civilized way.

Before I go on, just to let everyone know. I am a Chinese Malaysian. Therefore, I am of Malaysian nationality, residing in Malaysia and have been in Malaysia for the past 3 generations. My loyalty is for Malaysia and not China and I have no direct relations to China whatsoever.

Sometimes things just hit people hard on the face without them realising it. All this talk and passionate screams to “Free Tibet” from China is being overrated.

Why is the Western world calling for Tibet’s freedom? Who started this in the first place? There are certain facts about Tibet that many “supporters of this cause” overlooked or even too ignorant to find out before jumping on the bandwagon supporting something they don’t even know it’s legitimacy.

Here are 2 solid facts about Tibet that supports Tibet is part of China.

Fact #1

Tibet has been under China since the Mongolian empire of the Yuan Dynasty since the 13th Century until this very day eight centuries (that’s 800 years for those who are unable to count centuries with their fingers) later. Tibet was under the Yuan (1271 - 1368), Ming (1368 - 1644) and Qing (1644 - 1911) dynasties, Republic of China (1911 - 1949) and the people’s Republic of China (1949 - present)

Fact #2

China is a multiracial/multicultural country, just like many other countries (just like Malaysia!) and not only consist of one race that many overlook as the Chinese. There are the Hans, Mongols, Manchus, Koreans even Muslims and not forgetting Tibetans. In total, there are 56 separate ethnic groups united under one country - China.

In my opinion, I see all these “Free Tibet” gimmicks is just to create problems in the upcoming Olympic Games for China. The timing of this is just undeniable.

All these human rights violations and robbery is just more gimmicks created by western world. Talking about human rights, more pressing human rights issues in the western world are almost totally unheard of as the western media almost NEVER cover any stories regarding the matter. Talk about neutrality. There’s no such thing!

Australia and the United States all have been oppressing their natives for too long but yet nothing has been done and no one stood up for them.

It’s time for Asians to rule their own countries and the western world to stay out of it. The west have oppressed us for too long since the Colonial and Imperial ages. It’s time that the west mind about their own business, buck up their own collapsing economies and focus on more pressing matters like ending the Iraq War.

If China is denying human rights in Tibet, then what is the Iraq War? Iraqis have been robbed of their rights ever since the war started and the best thing of all is, the western world endorses this war! How ironic!

A friendly message to “Free Tibet” supporters (or Human Rights activists for which both are to blame) - go read your history books before taking it to the streets on something that you have no idea whatsoever you are supporting. There are matters that are more pressing in your own countries that needs your immediate attention.

Earth Hour ‘08

Earth Hour is approaching quickly and in less than 24 hours, over 100 cities all around the world will turn off all non-essential lighting throughout the city. Cities participating in the event are from countries which include Australia, New Zealand, United States, Canada, Israel, Malaysia, Thailand and several other countries throughout the world.

So here’s the plan:

Taken from earthhour.org

On March 31 2007, for one hour, Sydney made a powerful statement about the greatest contributor to global warming – coal-fired electricity – by turning off its lights. Over 2.2 million Sydney residents and over 2,100 businesses switched off, leading to a 10.2% energy reduction across the city. What began as one city taking a stand against global warming caught the attention of the world.

In 2008, 24 global cities will participate in Earth Hour at 8pm on March 29. Earth Hour is the highlight of a major campaign to encourage businesses, communities and individuals to take the simple steps needed to cut their emissions on an ongoing basis. It is about simple changes that will collectively make a difference – from businesses turning off their lights when their offices are empty, to households turning off appliances rather than leaving them on standby.

So that’s in less than 22 hours to go for the folks in New Zealand and Australia. Compared to last year’s Lights Out event which took place on 31 March which only lasted 5 minutes, this year it’ll be bigger, better and will draw in bigger support in lieu of the world’s growing energy demands and global warming.

So it’s tomorrow, 29th of March 2008, 8pm local time. Off ALL electrical appliances, lights and anything else that runs on electric in your home.

P.S. It’ll not only help in telling all the industry polluters that global warming is getting bigger than we can manage but it’ll also help you save your electricity bill!! I’d say it’s totally worth it!

Competitiveness

Was reading this article on The Star website regarding our beloved Prime Minister giving a speech telling people not to compare Malaysia with Singapore.

 The Star

18 February 2008

Pak Lah: Don’t compare Malaysia with Singapore

PENANG: Do not compare Singapore’s economy with that of Malaysia’s.

It is like comparing “first-class grapes (Singapore) with first-class apples (Malaysia),” Prime Minster Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said when addressing the Chinese community at the Penang Chinese Town Hall (PCTH) dialogue session yesterday.

“We are a population of over 20 million and we rank eighth in the world in terms of our competitiveness.

“This is not the Government’s figure and I am not telling you lies. This statistic is from an international survey.

“If I quote statistics from our own surveys, you will not believe us. Everywhere I go, the business community tells me that Malaysia is doing very well. These people are smart. You cannot fool them because they are well-read,” he said, adding that the Government had no reason to lie.

“Please trust us – we are your government. If you look at the economy, we are doing well. That is a fact proven by figures. But people still claim otherwise because of increasing prices. This is a very simplistic way of analysing the economy.

“Nobody is happy to see prices rising but this is out of our control. The question is not how to bring down prices but how to help the rakyat cope.

“Every country in the world is faced with rising oil prices except maybe Brunei but you cannot compare. The RM40bil oil subsidy we give out can be used to build better schools, roads, hospitals and infrastructure but we don’t want to burden the people,” he said, adding that education and medical treatment was also heavily subsidised by the Government.

“We subsidise even water and electricity, yet people are angry when they hear the word ‘toll’. We try to subsidise as much as possible but we still need to impose toll charges because we need to build roads,” he said before thanking the Chinese community for contributing to the country’s economy.

“The private sector is dominated by the Chinese and I want to say a big ‘thank you’ to the community for creating so many job opportunities,” he said.

1. If we don’t compare ourselves with someone better, how are we to improve ourselves?
2. We rank 8th in competitiveness in the world as claimed but according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report released last year, Malaysia ranks 21st in both Global and Business Competitiveness from 19th the previous year. (Where did he get this ambiguous and inaccurate information from? There’s no where else other than the World Economic Forum’s report to follow)
3. Read on the report further and you’ll find out that the top 2 most problematic factors in Malaysia are inefficient government bureaucracy and corruption. Oh dear, oh dear!
4. Yes, yes. You would argue that Malaysia is 21st out of 131 economics surveyed, that’s good. That isn’t my point, my point is where on Earth are we ranked 8th?

Hmmm. *ponders*

Probably I should go look at some anonymous global competitiveness ranking only approved by Malaysia and I might just find the answer there.

The Golden Compass

A group of friends and I went to watch the latest premiering movie, The Golden Compass adapted from the trilogy, His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman.

A good movie I would say. Definitely recommended if you’ve not read the book. Personally, I would not watch a movie that is based on a book that I’ve read before. The movie would then turn out to be very predictable and disappointing as with all movies based on a book, scenes will have to be cut and removed to shorten the film.

A definite yes and extra two thumbs up for this movie. As of this morning, I’ve already bought the first book to read from Amazon! Yay! Can’t wait for it to arrive within the next few days.

Go watch the movie!

Malaysia’s Identity Crisis in TIME

Found an interesting article about our beloved country, Malaysia.

It’s rather long though but it’s worth the time and effort to read every word.

Click here to find out!

Mr Kipling’s

French Fancies.

It not only looks darn good, it tastes even better than darn good! Mr Kipling (if that’s the creator’s name) is a genius!