Malaysian success model and stability

Ukraine had high hopes for cooperation with Malaysia, especially in the military and technical sphere. This was especially stressed in 2003, when Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad came to Ukraine for several days with an official visit. Mahathir saw the potential of Ukrainian aerospace and shipbuilding industries. Unfortunately, this potential hasn’t been realized. Malaysia, a country with many ethnic groups and many religions, is considered to be one of the fastest developing economies in the world. The annual growth of the Malaysian economy is seven percent of GDP. Malaysia ranks second in the world in the ranking of the countries, whose economy is most dependent on trade. Perhaps, Ukraine should use this factor in its relations with this country, so that Malaysia would buy Ukrainian products and services. In an exclusive interview to The Day Chuah Teong Ban, Malaysia’s Ambassador to Ukraine, spoke about how for a decade Malaysia has managed to ensure economic development, maintaining stability in the multi-ethnic and multi-religious society.

Mr. Ambassador, Coming here, I saw a slogan: “Malaysia truly Asia” in Russian and English. And my question is, why was this slogan chosen for your country?

 “Well, this is our tourism tag line or selling point. It was chosen because of the unique composition of Malaysia – multiracial and multi-religion – where all the ethnic groups in Asia, ranging from Arabs, Middle East, China, India to south-east Asia region are populated. In other words, almost the whole of Asia is in Malaysia. This tag line has been a good selling point since we launched it in 2007 and has attracted additional 7.4 million tourists coming to Malaysia within that year. Last year, the tourist arrivals to Malaysia recorded 25.03 million tourists.”

As to the size of your population?

 “The number of foreigners coming to Malaysia during the one whole year for tourism almost equaled to the size of Malaysian population. The receipts earned from the tourism industry were close to USD2.02 billion.”

Coming back to the first question, I have seen some data. World Rating places your country on the sixth place index in terms of economic growth – seven percent. Your country is considered one of the most vibrant economies in south-east Asia. So, can you tell our readers how your country succeeded having decades of industrial growth and political stability?

“Well, to maintain a high industrial growth in Malaysia is not by chance. It owes to proper and careful economic planning. And one of the key principles we adopted is the open market principle. We are also continuously reforming our economic structure with proactive approach. Therefore, we are constantly changing to prepare for future challenges. This model is clearly illustrated if you see that when we became independent in 1957 our economy was based on the agriculture commodities. We slowly moved to industrialization and manufacturing in the 1970s. Today, our economic structure is no more very dependent on those two sectors but more on the service industry, which contributes about 48 percent of our economy.”

Almost half?

“Yes, almost half. But the agriculture that used to be the major share when we became independent has shrunk to only 12 percent. Manufacturing sector that used to be about 60-70 percent has also shrunk to 40 percent. So in other words our economy is changing from the agriculture as the mainstay to service industry now.”

What kind of business or economic models have you chosen? Singapore, American, Western…

“I think each economic model adopted by each country has its own peculiarities. It’s not accurate to say that we follow one model. We choose the best of everything to suit our needs and our limitations. But the most important thing is that we have employed pragmatic economic policy, we are proactive, we are reform-minded and we keep changing. We want to make ourselves more competitive. What propelled our economy was not just all these principles but being pragmatic to recognize that our domestic market is small. So, we need to go out to the world to promote our products to gain external market share, which is clearly more demanding. In that way, we can generate more demand to building our industrial capacity.”

Having multi-ethnical, multi-racial society, and one official language, how did you succeed to have harmony in the country?

“The most important pillar is that the fundamental rights of all Malaysian citizens are safeguarded in our Constitution. Our Constitution designates one national language but allows other languages to be used, freely spoken and even freely taught in our schools or at home. The same freedom is on the professing of religion. Islam is the main and official religion but other religions can be freely practiced. Therefore, you will find churches and mosques standing side by side. In some places, church, Buddhist temple, Hindu temple or any other religious place of worship are situated close to each other in a harmonious manner.”

I have read that British foreign office recommends to British tourists not go to some regions of Malaysia. What can you say about this?

“This is because in recent weeks there was an intrusion by some Sulu gunmen who claim that the particular area in Malaysia called Sabah State belongs to their sultanate and it is their ancestor land. It has been indisputably confirmed by the international community at the United Nations that Sabah is the sovereign land of Malaysia. Malaysia has the territorial right to rule this place. A referendum was carried out by Cobbold Commission in 1962, just before Sabah joined Malaysia, to determine whether the people of Sabah want to join Malaysia. The result of the referendum was an overwhelming two-thirds majority that they supported to join Malaysia.”

How do harmony and stability in your country help the fact that you have a prime minister and monarch?

“The separation of power between the Prime Minister and the monarch is based on the British model where the Prime Minister is the Head of Government and Monarch is the Head of State. Historically, Malaysia has many rulers, and all these rulers have their own sovereign right over their ancestor land. The Constitution drafted by the British in consultation with Malaysian came up with a model based on British constitutional monarchy. In order to have a Supreme King of Malaysia, the Ruler Council comprised all nine sultans will elect a Sultan to play that role every five years. This unique system of selection is democratization in itself and I believe is the only one in the world.

Ukraine has great potential, if Ukraine does promotion in a more systemic way or sustained way. You can’t just promote today and stop doing so tomorrow.

 “Like in British constitutional monarchy, the king is a symbol of unity. He plays his role above politics, and he plays the role of bringing harmony and unity for everybody.”

 Mr. Ambassador, in one interview you mentioned about three important tasks on the post of Head of diplomatic mission in Ukraine: to organize bilateral state visits on high level, to revive inter-regional, cultural, humanitarian and business contacts, as well as increasing bilateral trade and investment, an increase in total turnover to $ 1 billion and providing Malaysian citizens the right to visit Ukraine without visas. How much have you succeeded from your task?

“In my two years here, I’ve been working to reach these simple objectives. I have worked very hard, and hopefully things will get better this year. You can’t expect to work and get result immediately. So I’ve been trying and working on various channels to improve relationships, such as having a good and balanced exchange of visits at high level from Malaysia to Ukraine and vice versa. On my part, many Malaysian high officials visited Ukraine for bilateral missions and I think we have done quite well.

 “Every year, the Malaysian embassy sent two groups of Ukrainian businessmen to Malaysia to look for trading opportunities of Malaysian goods and to see how they can invest in Malaysia. I have also continuously made promotions of tourism and greater people-to-people contact. Through the efforts, more Ukrainians are visiting Malaysia. About 5,500 Ukrainians vissited Malaysia last year because they do not need visa to visit Malaysia. On the other hand, we see that there are a lot of activities and potentials in business from Ukraine to Malaysia. Perhaps, there has been not enough publicity about all the events of Ukraine in Malaysia.”

What about visits on highest level, when will president of Ukraine visit Malaysia?

“Of course, I look very much forward to the president of Ukraine and other Ukrainian ministers visiting Malaysia in the near future.”

Why not in May?

“I don’t know whether it has been scheduled for this May.”

I have heard that it is scheduled.

“Officially I have not been told. But I would rather put it in more general term hopefully by the end of this year. If president of Ukraine visits my country, it would be a milestone in our bilateral relations.”

Former Ambassador of Malaysia to Ukraine which was interviewed by me in 2003 had told about the possibility of cooperation in different fields and even recommended be more active Asia will open before you. What you may say about this from your two-year experience being in Ukraine?

“I think what he has said is from the experience of Malaysia. We are 55 years of independence, Ukraine is 21 years. We are young nations. We know how it is like in nation building as we have transformed our economy from a colony into an active economy in the world. We are able to transform it because we have done a lot of promotions. And when he says: be more active, it means be more active in promoting of your interests. We are able to become an active emerging economy, because we have been promoting our products overseas and we know we have excellent products. We know if Ukraine can do aggressive promotion, your business or your economy will flourish. And when your economy flourishes, your people will enjoy a better life. When you have better life, you will have better stability.”

Do you think that lack of promotion of the capabilities in different spheres is the problem of Ukraine?

“I think Ukraine has great potential, if Ukraine does promotion in a more systemic way or sustained way. You can’t just promote today and stop doing so tomorrow. We have been promoting non-stop our economy, our products. We have been promoting our products, constantly improving our services and our products to be competitive with other emerging economies. Some of them, we are able to produce very cheap. We have also promoted tourism. When we started the campaign of Visit Malaysia Year in 1990, we were only looking at 3 million people visiting Malaysia. Today we have more than 25 million visiting Malaysia. That sharp increase is due to our consistent promotional efforts. What I see lacking in Ukraine is that Ukraine is not doing enough promotion and that I can attribute it to the reason why the trade balance between Malaysia and Ukraine, is in Malaysia’s favor. Malaysian businesspeople are not familiar with your products. They are more familiar with other products, because other products/other markets have done better promotion. Ukraine has high technological capabilities in the aerospace and defense industries. If you are not doing promotion, designing your product to suit customers’ needs, your product will remain in your shelf. Promotion is so important to Malaysia and we are able to get investors to come to Malaysia. We are able to consult and discuss with potential investors their fear, their myths and their doubts of investing in Malaysia. Therefore, I believe in promotion.”

You mentioned the target 1 billion dollars of turnover. In which spheres this target can be reached?

“I think one billion is easily achieved if both parties work together. Currently Malaysia has been working actively and doing a lot of promotion to get Ukrainian businesspeople to go to Malaysia to buy Malaysian products. As a result, a lot of people are importing from Malaysia. Almost 66 percent of total trade is imports from Malaysia, whereas exports from Ukraine contribute to about 33 percent. If we can increase the exports of Ukrainian products to Malaysia, then the total trade will be able to grow and it will be more balanced.”

What Ukrainian products would Malaysia like to buy?

“Malaysia is also a new industrialized country. We have resources, some of the resources we have you do not have. But some of the resources you have we do not have. So we need to find a complementary way to come and work together. Once we are able to do promotion and the businesspeople and investors are fully aware of the risks, obstacles, constraint, business environment and incentives that are being offered, businesspeople will seize the opportunity and work hard to take up those opportunities.”

But you haven’t mentioned which spheres. You know about Ukraine’s capabilities to launch satellites. Why the cooperation in this field has not been developed?

“There is no doubt that Ukraine has capability in aerospace. Malaysia has launched TiungSat, a microsatellite in 2000 using joint Russia and Ukraine rocket. We have done that once. We know that Ukraine can build aircraft carriers, airplanes, submarines and other military crafts. Again, promotion must be done to sell your products. Every year an exhibition of defense equipment takes place in Malaysia. This year from 26-30 March there will be LIMA 2013 (Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace Exhibition). Next year there will be Defense Services Asia exhibition. All these exhibition events are for the Asia-Pacific defense market. Ukraine has participated every year. Only officials attended these functions. It would be good to see high level officials like Minister himself going to Malaysia to lend support to the defense industries. Such visit will be good for building rapport and political cooperation.”

What is your personal impression about Ukraine?

“Ukraine is a very beautiful country, a very strategic country, a country that has very nice and warm people with beautiful personality. One particular point that quite impressed me is the sincerity and honesty of the common people. I am not saying nice words just to please the readers. I am saying this from my own observation. The level of honesty among common people in the street can be impressive. For instance, if you go up the bus (Marshrutka) from the rear and it was crowded inside, you can safely take out a 10 hryvnias note to pay for the fare of two hryvnias. That 10 hryvnias note will be passed from the next person in front by tapping on the shoulder and the money will move on until to the driver. After that the change will come back to you through the same manner without any lesser amount. These small things that I observed proved the extent of sincerity of the people of Ukraine. I think Ukrainians can also be very good friends. They may look stern in disposition but when you start to talk to them and get to know them better, you will be surprised that they are open minded, friendly and have warm heart.”

What places in Ukraine do you like?

“As I have said, Ukraine is a very beautiful country. It has many historical sites. And I have visited quite a number of them and it was very rewarding. The only problem is that because I cannot read in Ukrainian or Russian, I ended up only seeing and not understanding. So, perhaps if Ukraine wants to earn some kind of tourism money, this infrastructure of having more signs in English would actually be quite useful.”