Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak relaxed a series of investment restrictions Tuesday, including a race-based policy that calls for local businesses to be partly owned by members of the country's majority ethnic-Malay population.
The moves are part of a series of changes Mr. Najib has pushed since becoming premier in April and are designed to make Malaysia more attractive to foreign investors.
Companies listing on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange will be required to allocate 12.5% of their equity to ethnic-Malays, compared with 30% before. The 30% Malay-ownership rules remain in force for "strategic industries" such as telecommunications, ports, energy and transport. In many cases, state investment funds have large controlling interests in these businesses.
Other measures include enabling greater foreign ownership of local stock brokerages.
Last week, Mr. Najib also moved to placate the country's ethnic-Chinese and Indian minorities by announcing plans for new, merit-based university scholarships for which Malay, Chinese and Indian students can compete on an equal basis.
Still, economists said Malaysia is a long way from fully removing its decades-old, race-based affirmative action program, known as the New Economic Policy. A backlash among ethnic-Malays is a real possibility, but "even baby steps towards removing these kinds of market restrictions are unambiguously positive," said Tim Condon, chief Asia economist for ING Group in Singapore.
Elsewhere in Asia, companies and governments are increasingly raising money by selling bonds on the international and local bond markets as the region starts to pull out of its downturn. But borrowing costs, down sharply from late 2008, could rise in the months ahead as relief gives way to concern about the durability of the economic recovery. Renewed tremors in credit markets in the past few weeks suggest investors may be turning more cautious, which could make it more difficult for all but top-rated Asian issuers to raise funds offshore.
—Ditas Lopez contributed to this article
No comments:
Post a Comment