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MALAYSIA & NEARBY
THE LISTING OF MALAYSIA IN THE US TREASURY’S & FUNDAMENTAL STRENGTH OF THE MALAYSIAN ECONOMY TL Bureau, Lumpur
Kuala
Malaysia is an open economy that builds our competitiveness upon excellent infrastructure, rising productivity, high level of transparency, strategic location and close integration with the global supply chain. While the US Department of the Treasury (US Treasury) has included Malaysia into its expanded Monitoring List of Potential Currency Manipulator, the report does not name Malaysia as a currency manipulator. In fact, the inclusion of Malaysia into the US Treasury’s Monitoring List along with other major trading economies like Germany, South Korea, Japan and Singapore only highlights the strength of the economy and the role played by Malaysia in the global economy. All countries with total trade above USD40 billion a year with the US are assessed by the US Treasury for closer inspection. Malaysia is among the 21 countries assessed. Countries would be
pl aced into the Monitoring List if they meet 2 out of 3 conditions set by the US Treasury. Malaysia is included the Monitoring List due to 2 factors. Firstly, Malaysia has a trade balance with the US of more the USD20 billion a year. Secondly, Malaysia has a healthy current account surplus of more than 2%
of its GDP. Both factors demonstrate the competitiveness of the Malaysian economy, instead of currency manipulation. Our competitiveness can be proven further by the country’s performance in the World Bank’s Doing Business 2019 Index and the recently updated IMD World Competitiveness
Ranking 2019. The World Bank ranks Malaysia as the 15th easiest place to do business out of 190 economies, an improvement of 9 places from the 24th place in the previous year. Meanwhile, IMD ranks Malaysia as the 22nd most competitive economy in the world, retaining our position from the previous year.
Palestine Gets Indonesia’s Detailed Disclosure of Attention at OIC Ministers International Reserves TL Bureau, Jeddah
May 2019. Since the first OIC serial Indonesian Foreign Minister meeting at the Senior Official Retno Marsudi attended the level, Indonesia has actively OIC Foreign Ministerial contributed in the negotiaMeeting in Jeddah (29/5). tion process for the HLC final This meeting was especially document. targeted to prepare two out- At the HLC preparatory meetcome documents of OIC High ing, Minister Marsudi espeLevel Conference (OIC HLC), cially highlighted the urgency including the draft of Final for the OIC country members Communique and the draft of to solidly support Palestine. resolution for Palestine and “OIC should unite through a Al-Quds Ash-Sharif. The 14th solid strategy and coordinaOIC High Level Conference tion in supporting Palestine," will be held in Mecca on 31 she added. Particularly, she
emphasized that the plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should consider three criteria, namely inclusivity (by involving both countries of conflict in the negotiation process), comprehensiveness (by avoiding the victimization of Palestinian political rights), and respect to the internationally-set parameters. Additionally, she affirmed Indonesia's readiness to host OIC HLC, as the confirmation of Asia's turn to hold the agenda.
Indonesia to Boost Medicines Sales in Africa TL Bureau, Johannesburg
Ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia in Pretoria, Salman Al-Farisi, during the "The needs of the African official opening of the people to medical devices Indonesian Pavilion at the and medicines are undoubtly Africa Health Exhibition, 28May 2019 in high, but their access is still 30 limited. This provides great Johannesburg, South Africa. opportunity for us to contin- There were four Indonesian ue our penetration into the companies participated in African market. Indonesian this exhibition: PT. Biofarma, branding must be strength- PT. Dexa Medica, PT. ened, one of which is Phapros, and CV. Kurniatama through our participation in Lestari. The strategically this big exhibition" said the located Indonesian Pavilion
had successfully drawed interest of the visitors. The Indonesian Embassy in Pretoria and ITPC Johannesburg were using this exhibition not only to introduce Indonesian products, but also to provide tourism information. The Indonesian delegation who wore batik and traditional clothes managed to be a distinctive feature that distinguished them from the other participants.
as at end-April 2019 TL Bureau, Kuala Lumpur
In accordance with the IMF SDDS format, the detailed breakdown of international reserves provides forward-looking information on the size, composition and usability of reserves and other foreign currency assets, and the expected and potential future inflows and outflows of foreign exchange of the Federal Government and Bank Negara Malaysia over the next 12month period. The detailed breakdown of international reserves based on the SDDS format is shown in Tables I, II, III and IV. As shown in Table I, official reserve assets amounted to USD103,407.2 million, while other foreign currency assets amounted to USD256.8 million as at end-April 2019. As shown in Table II, for the next 12 months, the pre-determined short-term outflows of foreign currency loans, securities and deposits, which include among others, scheduled repayment of external borrowings by the Government and repayment arising from maturity of the foreign currency Bank Negara Interbank Bills, amounted to USD5,475.2 million. The short forward positions amounted to USD14,297.0 million while long forward positions amounted to USD200 million as at end-April 2019, reflecting the management of ringgit liquidity in the money market. In line with the practice adopted since April 2006, the data excludes projected foreign currency inflows arising from interest income and the drawdown of project loans amounting to USD2,506.6 million in the next 12 months. As shown in Table III, the only contingent short-term net drain on foreign currency assets are Government guarantees of foreign currency debt due within one year, amounting to USD350.9 million. There are no foreign currency loans with embedded options, no undrawn, unconditional credit lines provided by or to other central banks, international organisations, banks and other financial institutions. Bank Negara Malaysia also does not engage in foreign currency options vis-à-vis ringgit.
