NEM fails to excite global investors

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 16 — The Najib administration’s New Economic Model (NEM) has failed to excite investors, with Bank of America Merrill Lynch maintaining this week its call to shed investments in Malaysia.

Despite the government’s high hopes on the NEM, the investment bank this month continued to rate Malaysia as a “big underweight” in emerging markets.

An underweight call is a recommendation to investors to reduce their investments in a particular security, asset class or, in this case, a country.

Malaysia managed to trim its underweight rating from over 50 per cent in November to 46 per cent this month but still only managed to come in second-last among the 15 countries studied by the investment bank.

This is despite the fact that emerging markets continue to be the equity region of choice for investors worldwide, with investments persisting at historically high levels.

Investors have so far greeted Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s highly anticipated NEM with disinterest, owing to lack of detailed policies, timelines and the apparent rollback of ambitious Bumiputera quota reforms detailed in the first half of the year.

The bold recommendations set out in the first part of the NEM to boost competitiveness by reducing quotas appear to have been sidelined in the second part launched recently.

Observers attribute this to stiff resistance from Malay rights groups concerned that such moves will erode the community’s interests.

Economists and political analysts have also criticised the NEM for its lack of innovative thinking and timidness, which they said does little to dispel lingering investor skepticism.

Malaysia also remains unattractive to Asia Pacific investors, with Merrill Lynch increasing its underweight rating four-fold for the country from November.

Topping the Asia Pacific list were strongly overweight Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea and China, with Singapore coming in fifth despite its downgrade to neutral.

Making up the rest of the underweight club were Southeast Asian nations Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia, along with New Zealand, Australia and India.

Nonetheless, Malaysia looks set to end the year as the fourth fastest growing emerging market after China, India and Turkey, and is expected to remain number four in 2011.

Developed markets, which bore the brunt of the financial crisis, will continue to contract, with the possible exception of sluggish growth in Europe. Emerging markets, on the other hand, face the risk of overheating next year and increased likelihood of “policy mistakes” in the form of insufficient or excessive money tightening.

Merrill Lynch expects the ringgit’s outperformance this year to fade due to a likely 50 basis point interest rate hike over the next 12 months by Bank Negara Malaysia, in response to increasing private investment in the economy.

Slow implementation of the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) due to political resistance and the low priority of fiscal consolidation were cited as possible risk factors to the national currency.

Also of concern were “some small risk” that Umno may lose more seats in the next general election — expected to take place next year — as well as higher inflation due to rising food and fuel prices.

The government embarked on a second wave of subsidy cuts earlier this month, which saw RON95, diesel and LPG prices go up by five sen per unit and sugar price increase by 20 sen per kg.

The price hikes are expected to put upward pressure on inflation, which Merrill Lynch predicts will rise from 1.8 per cent this year to 2.8 per cent next year, before dropping slightly to 2.5 per cent in 2012.

Malaysia’s real GDP growth is also expected to drop to 5.2 per cent in 2011 and 5.4 per cent in 2012 from the expected 7.2 per cent expansion this year, putting at risk the 6 per cent annual growth needed to propel the nation to high-income status by 2020. - Malaysian Insider