1. It appears that there is general acceptance of the mediocrity of the Malaysian economic growth story amongst the policymakers, and there is general readiness to embrace the change. Without the chest-thumping of politicians, “omphaloskepsis” or navel-gazing has turned to a somewhat muted and pessimistic outlook.
2. So where to now? Ideas of a high-growth model to bring us out of the income trap has surfaced, though it is noted perhaps more of the rhetorics of grandeur it generates rather than any solid substantial plans as of this moment. Perhaps it is still early stages, but when government ministers seem to be preoccupied with their personal KPI setting for what they have done before, and rather mundane NKRAs that it’s looking at currently, who’s looking at what to do next? EPU and MOF seems to be focusing on hot to replace ‘loss’ of Bumiputra rights and what to do with a shiringking treasury. Personally, someone mentioned in the KMF recently that Stiglitz and Sen has proposed a different set of measures to look at growth and progress, and it should be one where the general betterment of the populace should be prioritized, and I do agree with this view wholeheartedly.
3. Back to my own scope – tech and biotech. I’d think that our success in this area, with expectations of this being the focal point of the economic growth story, is important. While personally I think the expectations are rather overblown, mainly from the perspective that there has been limited domestic success models currently, and growth potential is curtailed by our lack of capacity amongst technocrats, scientists, investors, researchers and financiers.
4. However, looking forward, success is predicated on three dimensions – execution capability, funding capacity and sustainable demand pipeline. We could perhaps draw four discrete scenarios across these soft drivers, (as opposed to predetermined hard drivers of ageing population, oil / gas shocks, etc):
- Green: successful coevolution of the three critical development factors outlined above
- Dry wells: progress on a global front, but we’re left further behind as we fail to leverage our execution and funding capacity-building
- Desert: global pipeline dries up as countries ramp up their domestic focus in the face of sluggish global economic conditions, and while decoupling may not be realised, but effectively demonstrated through raised trading barriers
- Status quo: we plod along, celebrate the little successes which come our way, overcome the little curveballs that gets thrown into our path ever so regularly by our regulators, partners and businesses
5. Preparation across all four scenarios entails:
- Continuous engagement and mobilization of the various entities and stakeholders in this Greening project\
- Engaging private financiers and incorporating their acceptance of biotech as an asset class early
- Remodeling and incentivizing local and foreign players to step up into the Malaysian-centric perspective
- Finalising and creating buyin of LS subsectors that the country would need to participate in
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