“Malaysia never gained Asian tiger status; at best also just a tiger cub economy”

 

AN economically enlightened social media influencer is wondering why all of a sudden, the Madani government has to revisit the propaganda that Malaysia needs to regain its “Asian Tiger” economic status which it had never attained or was merely a hype.

“I don’t understand why the government now has to repeat the propaganda that Malaysia needs to return as an Asian Tiger like (during the) Mahathir (era) because Malaysia has never been an Asian Tiger or reached Asian Tiger status even in the 1990s,” tweeted Syahir (@syahirsyhr) on the X platform.

“The four countries called Asian Tigers are Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan.”

Syahir was reacting to Second Finance Minister Datuk Seri Amir Hamzah Azizan who claimed that Malaysia is making great strides to reclaim its “Asian Tiger” economy status.

“To reclaim the Asian Tiger status is not a pipe dream. The government and I are very confident that we can achieve this,” Bernama quoted the former EPF CEO as telling Malaysian diaspora in Singapore as part of his two-day working visit to the republic.

“We are also seeing a lot of financial analysts out there, a lot of rating agencies, a lot of people that are acknowledging that Malaysia is fundamentally back.”

But Syahir clarified the misconception given that Malaysia has only been categorised as one of the “Asian Tiger Cub Economies” alongside Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines.

“We are in the category of countries that try to follow the same economic model as the Asian Tigers but have never reached the same level as developed countries or high-income economies,” he substantiated with evidence.

“From then until now we are still a developing economy or upper middle-income economy. It feels like experts have corrected it many times (yet) why do you want to repeat something that never existed? ”

Forner de facto law minister Datuk Zaid Ibrahim described efforts to detach the “Tiger economy” label from Malaysia as “an effort to ignore (twice former premier) Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s outstanding contribution to the country’s development”.

“It was correct that the original term Asian Tigers was limited to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea. However, Malaysia’s rapid growth in the 1990s led many economists to describe us as the Tiger Cub economy,” he penned on the X platform.

“Let’s just say we were a smallish type of Tiger – like a Sumatran Tiger – and not the Bengali or Siberian types. But still a Tiger.”

But the seemingly opposition-slant Zaid (despite being an UMNO member), praised Amir Hamzah for having reaffirmed the government’s commitment to rekindle the Asian Tiger tag,

“But it is tough to follow. The Tigers share common characteristics like a highly educated populace, sharp export earnings and a high savings rate”.

On the hindsight, former finance minister Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah (1976-1984) poured scorn on the notion that Malaysia was once an Asian Tiger by disputing a claim by the country’s longest serving premier of 22 years and 22 months, Dr Mahathir.

“You call yourself an ‘Asian Tiger’ but you’re actually a monkey. You’re not developed” the UMNO stalwart told news portal Free Malaysia Today (FMT). “We were never an ‘Asian Tiger’. It’s only illusory.”

- focus malaysia