Malaysian Economy

Tutorial 1: Introduction
1. What can you tell about historical, contemporary and future Malaysian economy? 2. Do economic & socio-economic factors play roles in the 12th General Election (in March 2008)? What possible effects you expected from the impact of the mentioned election to the future Malaysian economy? [Refer Appendix: Article 1] 3. Briefing on Students’ assignments.

Tutorial 2: A brief history of Malaysian economic development

1. Elaborate the favorable scenarios that respectively enable tin mining and rubber plantation became Malaysia (Malaya) main source of growth. 2. Why Malaysia did not continue to rely on tin and rubber plantation as main source of growth? 3. The contribution of British to Malaysian economy during colonial and early post-colonial period has been both positive and negative. Discuss the statement. 4. “I was in school in Johor Baru in 1967, and I’d go to Singapore on a bus over the weekend. Singapore was then a shanty town, of no significance. But today, it is the pride of the world. If they can do it, why can’t we?” claimed Zaid Ibrahim, former de facto Law Minister of Malaysia. Discuss his statement [Refer Appendix: Article 2].

Tutorial 3: Economic planning of Malaysia
1. What are the major objectives of New Economic Policy (NEP) and what are the government’s efforts to achieve those objectives? 2. What are the main focuses of National Development Policy (NDP)? 3. What are the challenges of Vision 2020?

4. “New leader, new style”. Discuss this statement with reference to Abdullah Badawi, Dr. Mahathir and Najib Razak approaches to economic development and planning.

Tutorial 4: Industrialization (Industrialization strategies and challenges) 1. Elaborate the problems during the early phrases of import-substitution industrialization (ISI) in Malaysia. 2. Rising labor cost could make Malaysia’s industrial product not competitive, thus harming further industrialization progress. Discuss. 3. Should Malaysia focus on developing its services sector and tourism industry instead of manufacturing sector? 4. Discussion on culture industry in Malaysia (assignment topic)

Tutorial 5: Industrialization (Heavy Industry)
1. Elaborate the problems of export-oriented industrialization (EOI) in Malaysia 2. Explain Malaysia’s heavy industrial policy.
3. Explain the reasons for heavy industrialization failure in Malaysia, including the failure cases of cement project, Perwaja Steel and Proton project? 4. Identify some challenges to Malaysia’s effort to become an industrial country.

Tutorial 6: Industrialization (and Students’ presentations) 1. Students’ presentations.

Tutorial 7: Agricultural Modernization (and Students’ presentations) 1. What are the major focuses of Ninth Malaysia Plan for development of agricultural sector? 2. Briefly explain the National Agriculture Policy (NAP) 1984. 3. What are the trusts and programs under the Northern Corridor Economic Region (NCER)? 4. Students’ presentations.

Tutorial 8: Investment (and Students’ presentations)
1. How Malaysian international relations contribute in attracting foreign direct investment from United Kingdom, Japan, Australia and Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC)? Explain. 2. Discuss the effect of Look East Policy to investment from Japan. 3. What are the incentives and expectations from Iskandar Malaysia (initially known as “Iskandar Development Region”)? 4. What are planned for the following states/areas under their respective investment corridor/region initiative? (i) Kelantan, (ii) Pahang, (iii) Tanjung Manis, and (iv) Mukah.

Tutorial 9: Privatization (and Students’ presentations)
1. In year 2006, Malaysia seems do embark on a reversal of privatization
policy. Does that indicate a failure of its privatization policy? 2. Discuss Malaysian public service improvement in efficiency towards paperless government. 3. Students’ presentations.

Tutorial 10: Students’ presentations and Free Topic Discussion 1. All students’ presentations should be finished in this tutorial. 2. Partial revision or free topic discussion.

Tutorial 11: Financial Markets
1. What is the role of Bank Negara Malaysia?
2. Describe with examples three major types of institution in Malaysian banking system and the concept of “universal bank”. 3. Elaborate the inefficiency and “mission drift” problem of microfinance operation in Malaysia. 4. Explain the challenges faced by the financial sector.

Tutorial 12: Asian Crisis
1. What are the causes of financial crises, such as the Asian crises? 2. How does Malaysia response to the Asian financial crisis? 3. What is the implication of the crisis?
4. What lessons can be learned from the crisis?

Tutorial 13: Fiscal and Monetary Policies Issues
1. Case studies on latest fiscal policy.
2. Case studies on latest monetary policy.

Tutorial 14: Other Issues
1. K-economy: Education reform (smart school, university ranking, Apex University) and information technology (Multimedia Super Corridor). 2. Issues on human resources economy: Effect of following phenomena to Malaysian economic development: (a) Brain drain, and (b) Commercialization of academia – good for human capital development?

Group Assignment
(For both Kampar and Sungai Long Campus)

Kulturindustrie (Culture Industry) in Malaysia

Reference:

1. Lim Kim Hui & Har Wai Mun. 2007. Globalisasi, media & budaya: Antara hegemoni Barat dengan kebangkitan Asia. Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. Available at UTAR library (Call number: P94.6.L56 2007). See Chapter 9 (page 257 – 293).

2. Wikipedia. (2009). Culture industry. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_industry.