Dr M admits Vision 2020 is a scam ?

Dr M fears Vision 2020 will not happen

Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad warned today that Malaysia will very likely not achieve Vision 2020 if the government continues to rely on foreign direct investment (FDI) to drive economic growth. “My fear is that it’s not achievable... Certainly it will not be achieved if we continue to solicit foreign direct investment,” he told delegates at the “Approaching 2020: Malaysia’s Decade for Growth?” forum organised by the Perdana Leadership Foundation here.

The feisty octogenarian explained that chasing FDI worked well in the past but that the strategy was no longer viable as “much more attractive” investment destinations have since emerged in Asia. Malaysia was “addicted” to FDI and depended too much on low labour cost to pull in investments without realising that times have changed since the country first started to court foreign investors decades ago, he said. “When we started to invite foreign direct investment, practically no other country, especially newly independent countries, were willing to accept foreign direct investment because of the fear that they will be colonised again. But we had no such fears,” Dr Mahathir said.

“Many of the industries which came here came for low-cost labour, for cheap labour. And we did quite well until the other countries in the region got into the act... Now foreign direct investment tends to go to. China, Vietnam, even Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines.” Insisting that there was nothing wrong with the vision but rather its implementation, Dr Mahathir urged the Najib administration to focus instead on encouraging domestic direct investment (DDI) to drive expansion from within and possibly achieve Vision 2020 that way. “2020 is a good vision. What we have to do now is to structure or to devise new strategies on how to achieve it because, at the moment, we’re still talking about foreign direct investment,” he added. “It’s not about changing the vision or changing the dates. It’s about the strategy... Don’t change the target. Leave the target there. It’s all right if we don’t make it, but change the strategies so that we will grow faster.

He pointed out that East Asian powerhouses Japan and Korea had not relied on FDI to power their rapid progress but instead set up and financed local companies utilising technology acquired from foreign sources to build indigenous capacity. Dr Mahathir also lamented that Malaysia did not give adequate financial support to its own entrepreneurs, and took a swipe at his countrymen’s poor attitude towards Malaysian products.

“In Malaysia, if we have any local entrepreneur who wants to expand and he goes to the bank to borrow US$5 million, the bank asks him, ‘What was the size of your previous contract? Oh, 2 million (dollars)? We cannot give you 5 million. You are good only for 2 million.’ So he cannot expand,” he said. “The other problem is that Malaysians detest Malaysian-made products. They don’t say it in so many words, but try to produce something that is original, invented by Malaysians... People will not buy because it is Malaysian.” However, the former premier today appeared to be unfazed by the prospect of Vision 2020 coming to fruition “a little bit later” than planned, proposing that Malaysia’s definition of developed nation was different from the norm. “We are talking about a developed country in our own mould, and the mould may be slightly smaller than the normal. So if we reach 2020 and have not achieved the vision, we can always say what we mean is something else,” he joked.

Unveiled in 1991, Vision 2020 laid out the government’s 30-year ambitious plan to make Malaysia a fully developed nation by the year 2020 by boosting GDP and per capita income. Although there is no single definition, advanced nations are usually identified by their high per capita income and developed service and knowledge industries, coupled with high life expectancy and quality of education.

Picture: The Father and Pribumi (Translation: Primates Away From Home)

I conned you people nicely eh?

Gang members of Pribumi HCO (Humanity Crime Organization), Perkasa