Economic Monitor -- CSM:)

As a newshound who had covered the Business Beat for some time (i.e. IF FIVE YEARS plus counts for "some", then I am not MIS'leading my esteemedreaders (ER, which can also be interpreted by newcomers hear as "Extra-Terrestrial Readers"!:( I would now extend my CMS -- community service message/s -- by occasionally C&P news for Economic Monitor. May be useful for investors in NegaraKu,or the punter on BUrsa Malaysia. Yes, I know many of my ER have cash stashed under the pillow that you pull out during raining days -- such as present fuel price hikes times, interesting! -- to try your luck multiplying the intrinsic values. You either laugh your way to the bank, and have have been badder off trying Tai-Sai at the Genting's casino. Either way, I don't care because I don't get 30%!:(

VIRGINAL SERVING:) or :(

S-E Asian economies stuck in old mindset
http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/6/14/business/21547180&sec=business

By FINTAN NG, The Star

Saturday June 14, 2008



PETALING JAYA: South-East Asian economies are still stuck in the old mindset, with family-owned businesses a symptom of a failed political-economic culture based on relationships forged in the colonial era.

Joe Studwell, editor of China Economic Quarterly, said Malaysia and other South-East Asian nations had fundamentally failed to escape from the shackles of colonialism because their political and economic elites continued to work together in a relationship that did not engender entrepreneurship and innovation.

He was giving a lecture on his book, Asian Godfathers: Money and Power in Hong Kong & South-East Asia, yesterday. Studwell’s book covers the often-complex world and relationships of tycoons with the political elites of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong.

Joe Studwell at the lecture yesterday
In these countries, he said, the post-independent period saw a shift in the ties between indigenous political elites to their non-indigenous largely Chinese economic elites from largely European economic elites before.

“Indigenous elites, such as Suharto, Ferdinand Marcos and (Tun Dr) Mahathir Mohamad, have also perpetrated the Victorian belief that their non-Chinese citizens do not possess the experience or entrepreneurial spirit to run successful businesses,” he said, referring to tracts from Dr Mahathir’s The Malay Dilemma as examples.

Studwell said this had led to a lower growth trajectory compared with Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. “In South-East Asia, economic elites are distributed economic rents in which the conditionality is not there, such as how these rents can contribute to the meaningful development of a country’s economy via export or the creation of global companies,” he said.

Studwell said Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, in which there were also family-run businesses, had done much better than South-East Asia’s economies in terms of gross domestic product per capita due to their much clearer industrial policies and emphasis on export-oriented industries.

“In instances where preferences or subsidies have been given, it was with conditions attached, such as building up industries that are export-oriented or technologically innovative,” he said, adding that Japan and South Korea had many companies whose names and products were well-known the world over, which was not the case in South-East Asia.

Studwell said the future for South-East Asia was bleak due to the entrenched interests and the way it had become an obstacle to the future growth of the region. “South-East Asia may just wallow in the lower to medium-income bracket going forward due to this essentially political failure,” he said.

Some "dessert" which is subject to intepretation that I caution my ER to use thy unique mind that God gifted every individual to see through the lens provided by The Malaysian Insider's, which might have been angled with a certain agenda in mind? Or not, we give the new exciting only newspaper the benfit of the doubt, but the generous analysis the newspaper gives to the present Government indeed finally work up to serving the Rakyat's interests above the Concessionaire's, I wish -- even pray -- the news provider is proven RIGHT! Thanks God the rip van wrinkles are no longer RIPping the citizens dry.

Sometimes even Desi believes the rivers do flow upstream
Fulfilling our wish for an annual ang-pow from Petronas, my Dream
God bless our nation's leaders, now quite a*wake!
I:
S:
A: men

*PS: Hope it's not just from40 or 80 winks:(