Prominent economist Jomo Kwame Sundaram says Malaysia should prioritise domestic investments over foreign investments. He adds that the existing laws and international agreements mean that it makes more sense for local investors to register their businesses abroad, citing homegrown company Grab as an example.
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00:00 If you look at the evidence throughout the world, domestic investments lead, foreign investments follow.
00:07 Here, for the last seven decades, we have been practising exactly the opposite.
00:13 Foreign investment leads, domestic investment is supposed to follow.
00:18 Has that actually happened in the world? No.
00:21 We have to privilege domestic investments.
00:25 And now with all the silly laws we have, international agreements we have agreed to,
00:29 we have a situation where it does not make sense for a Malaysian investor to be registered in Malaysia.
00:39 You can get more privileges by being a foreign investor, let us say, south of the causeway,
00:45 than you can being based in Malaysia.
00:48 It is not a surprise that the company which I didn't use this morning,
00:56 run by Malaysians, is actually registered in Singapore.
01:03 So you actually have a situation where we have created all kinds of laws
01:09 which actually do not help Malaysian investors to develop.
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