See what’s our Bank Negara governor Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz says about Malaysians strenghts. Below are the most interesting part.
If we were compare the current economic condition to that of the previous crisis, how bad is it for Malaysia and globally?
We need to separate the two. We are not in a recession and we don’t expect to be in one. Half the world will likely be in a recession. We are the other part that expects to still see growth because there are real economic activities happening.
You have to make a distinction between the stage and crisis. In our case, we took action very early so there is the potential for containing the severity of the crisis.
Last year was a very good year for the economic and capital markets. We had significant inflows. We saw a build-up of our reserves to more than US$120bil and our exchange rate had appreciated sharply to RM3.15.
What is the maximum amount that can go out under short term flows?
We are able to absorb because our reserves were so high. As a country, we never needed the reserves that we had, except to act as buffer
Do you have a comfortable level for the amount for reserves?
No. We did a study once that looked at the optimal level of reserves at US$30bil to US$40bil. Our reserves are three to four times that amount.
Popularity: 2% [?]