Economic Outlook for Southeast Asia

Folks,

I stumble across this very good report on the internet titled "Economic Outlook fot Southeast Asia, China and India 2014: Beyond the Middle Income Trap", published by Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

It is quite a comprehensive report covering the Southeast Asian (SEA) nations, including Malaysia.

The review of our country is excellent and done in a concise manner. In the report, it was mentioned that Malaysia's medium term policy challenges and responses are:-

1. Improve the quality of education -- this is absolutely timely! Especially on the English language. I am a strong advocate for using English as the medium of instruction. English is today's and future lingua franca of the world. It is inevitable and we need to rectify the education issues in Malaysia.

2. Improve the productivity of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)-- this is timely too for SMEs accounted as much as 97.3% of all business establishments. We need to develop this sector for the benefit of our nation. Here are some interesting statistics anbout our SMEs mentioned in thus report:-

*90.1% of the SMEs are in services sector
*5.9% of the SMEs are in manufacturing
*3% of the SMEs are in construction
*SMEs contribution to the nation's GDP in 2011 is nearly one-third (32.5%)

3. Widen tax base and improve tax administration and compliance -- I think that introduction of Goods and Services Tax (GST) by our PM Najib Razak is actuallg a good move to save and improve our public finance system. It is certainly an unpopular move, but looking objectively, it will bring better impact in the long run.

Google this report folks.
It is available in OECD website.

Have a good reading time.