FORMER BRITISH PM COMMENDS NAJIB'S ASTUTE STEERING OF MALAYSIA'S ECONOMY

From Mikhail Raj Abdullah

HONG KONG, March 24 (Bernama) -- Former British Prime Minister Sir John Major commended Najib Tun Razak for his candour and being
straightforward with foreign fund managers here in outlining the state of the Malaysian economy and listening to their concerns.

"Malaysia is in very good hands indeed, based on what the Malaysian Prime
Minister has been telling foreign fund managers at the Credit Suisse Asian
Investment conference here Tuesday and his commitment to change Malaysia into a
truly developed economy," he said to the applause from the audience at the
International Financial Centre here.

Major, a special adviser to Credit Suisse, was addressing a dinner function
hosted by CIMB and the financial services group where Najib was guest of honour
after the high-level conference which brought together some 100 top-notch
regional fund managers.

Najib had back-to-back meetings with fund managers as well as captains of
industry and delivered a keynote address at a luncheon which was moderated by
Major.

Major said Najib made a clear case in selling Malaysia as an investment
destination which the foreign fund managers truly appreciated, who in turn were
open about what was lacking in Malaysia’s equity and capital markets.

Earlier, Najib, in addressing the gathering, said he took cognizance of what
changes fund managers wanted to see in the Malaysian capital market.

The Prime Minister said that after intense deliberations with the fund
managers, he had a good sense now of how they perceived Malaysia.

"You like Malaysian markets, which are stable but not exciting enough, so we
really have to do something about it given the buzz and the wow factor.

"When the world markets are running high, the Malaysian market doesn’t move
that much, but the good thing is that when the world markets come crashing down,
we don't crash that much either," said Najib.

However, he said, movements in the market excited fund managers, which
was why Malaysia had to create more oppportunities for investment by creating
companies with good track record for listing.

Turning to economic reforms, he said that while fund managers liked the
them, they nevertheless wanted them to be accelerated and implemented faster.

Bearing in mind the political dimension in the country, Najib said there was
still a lot that could be done, which was basically to engage the Malaysian
public.

He said it was crucial to make them understand why Malaysia needed to be
more competitive, stronger economically and thereafter emerge as an attractive
investment destination.

"This is what the New Economic Model (NEM) is all about, which will set the
future direction in terms of the economic transformation of Malaysia," he said.

Najib said that the NEM, to be unveiled on March 30, should be nothing short
of a transformation and should not be merely an incremental change.

"I believe we should move right across the board so that there is a massive
transformation of Malaysia in due course," he said.

To this end, he called on foreign fund managers to invest in Malaysia for
the long haul and expressed confidence that the country would emerge as an
exciting prospect for them and the investors.

-- BERNAMA