KUALA LUMPUR – Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has joined the chorus of criticism against Finance Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz over his glowing statements about Malaysia’s position in the global economy on social media.
Najib, in a Facebook post today, acknowledged the public's negative perception that Tengku Zafrul was being "syiok sendiri" (full of himself) when sharing a report by The Edge on LinkedIn yesterday.
"The Perikatan Nasional (PN) government's finance minister was slammed by netizens and foreign investors yesterday after he made a posting that gave the impression that investments into the country remained high in 2020 with a figure of more than RM100 billion.
"He was criticised because many thought that he was dishonest, tried to hide the real situation and gave the wrong impression about foreign investment," said Najib, who was finance minister from 2008 to 2018.
The reality, Najib pointed out, is that foreign investment in the country has fallen sharply year-on-year since the last general election, which was won by Pakatan Harapan (PH) with Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad becoming prime minister again in 2018.
However, after Dr Mahathir resigned from the premiership in February last year, PN took control of the government, with Bersatu's Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin succeeding him.
Najib said: "If one does not believe, try to think back to what significant foreign investment that the PH and PN governments have announced in the last three years.
"Foreign investment last year (as of the third quarter) was very bad and actually became negative in the third quarter when some of the existing foreign investment in Malaysia moved to neighbouring countries.
"I understand that foreign investment in Malaysia last year may be affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, but many are also wondering why foreign investment in neighbouring countries are going up."
In the article shared by Tengku Zafrul, he had referred to how Malaysia has recorded a total of RM109.8 billion worth of foreign and domestic direct investments, involving close to 3,000 projects in the manufacturing, services and primary sectors in the first nine months of 2020.
However, Eurocham Malaysia CEO Sven Scheider retorted on LinkedIn: “I am very sorry to make this comment, but representing a sizable community of foreign investors, the European Union (EU), we currently receive a lot of concerns regarding Malaysia as a viable investment destination.”
In his comments, Sven claimed that Tengku Zafrul had failed to even meet investors and corporations to listen to their concerns.
“Without these inputs, your ministry certainly cannot address the problems on the ground. Besides, it really needs more than a few nice words and window-dressing,” Sven said.
Replying to another commenter, Sven mentioned that, despite how Vietnam has “aggressively moved ahead”, he still believes in Malaysia.
In the Edge report on January 7, Tengku Zafrul had claimed that Malaysia is well-positioned in the global economic arena, referring to a Bloomberg report stating that Malaysia ranks fifth among emerging economies as a key destination for business. – The Vibes, January 10, 2021
