No shortage of advice in Malaysian crisis
No shortage of advice in Malaysian crisis
By Nelson Graves
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters): Grow vegetables. Donate your jewelry. Eat home-grown food.
Malaysians are receiving a steady diet of advice on how to fend off the economic crisis and revive the nation.
There is no shortage of adages or opportunities for a loyal Malaysian to contribute to the cause.
Do you have cash or jewelry to spare? You can donate them to the National Loyalty Fund.
Do you own a plantation? Tell your workers to plant vegetables, not flowers, in front of their homes.
Are you a woman with at least 100 ringgit ($28) in spare cash? Put it in the national Women's Fund, and earn returns in a year. True to form, the government is taking the lead in the national campaign to save for a rainy day and make a penny saved a penny earned.
"If there is extra money or jewelry which we don't really use...I'm not asking, but if you want to donate to the nation, we accept because it will help increase our reserve," Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said recently.
Barely a day goes by without a new proposal emerging in the newspapers or from government agencies to curtail costly imports and keep a lid on prices.
Domestic Trade Minister Megat Junid Ayob last month launched a "Love Malaysia" campaign. Its centerpiece is a list of goods made in Malaysia that cost less than imported versions and offer at least equal quality.
Megat proposed last month that his ministry establish a list of recommended prices to prevent retailers from charging sky-high prices.
Megat's deputy, S. Subramaniam, then urged consumers to boycott shops that raised the prices of food and drinks such as tea and coffee.
The youth wing of Mahathir's United Malays National Organization (UMNO) has launched an "Eat More Local Food" campaign to discourage imports.
Nine non-governmental organizations have set up a Committee to Defend the National Economy, which has urged the government to offer incentives to small landowners to grow more food.
Women from the Perak state unit of Mahathir's UMNO party organized a sale of jewelry on Valentine's Day.
Within three hours, women had donated some 500,000 ringgit worth of gold jewelry, including 2,650 ringgit from the chief minister's wife, to a local goldsmith. The women later placed their proceeds in local savings accounts.
In early February, some 2,000 women gathered in the capital to donate 275,690 ringgit to the new Women's Fund and pledged another 265,000. The money will be managed by a fund managing company, and returns are expected within a year.
Mahathir has ordered the formation of a special body called the National Loyalty Fund to collect money, jewelry and property to be used to prop up the nation's foreign reserves.
"Altogether the government is trying to encourage greater frugality and savings," Sulaiman Mahbob, deputy vice chancellor of Northern University of Malaysia, told Reuters.
"It drives home the point to all Malaysians that we need to buck up and be more conscious of our spending and be more pragmatic."
Sulaiman said the measures alone would not revive the economy, but they were still worthy. "Some measures are symbolic, but they indicate a new culture -- just don't throw money around, be more prudent," he said.
"We have never seen such a depreciation of the ringgit," he said, referring to the 30 percent drop in the Malaysian currency against the U.S. dollar since last July.
"We need a new paradigm. It's a bitter pill, but we have to swallow it."
One of the more eye-catching moves was the brainchild of local agency Bloomingdale Advertising.
The firm placed a full-page ad in the New Sunday Times last month with the headline, "Why Keep a Pair of Terrapins in a Deep Bowl Half Filled with Water in These Trying Times".
Other than a single photograph of two turtles, the advertisement was short on hype and long on hard-nosed common sense on coping in the slowdown.
Only buy necessities. Leave your credit card behind. Pay your bills on time. Save your coins. Exercise regularly. Share books and magazines. Learn to sew. Bring a packed lunch to work. Stop going to hair salons. Dress for comfort, not for style.
The advertisement prompted a flood of positive feedback. "We have had a lot of prospective clients call up," Bloomingdale general manager Lionel Jackson told Reuters, saying the firm received some 800 e-mails in one week.
"Normally we would have been lucky to get eight."
Bloomingdale gathered the ideas from its employees, ranging from the founder and executive director Malkeet Singh to the office boys, who were asked what they would do if they wanted to cut personal spending by 20 percent.
Why the terrapins? "The Chinese believe that in not so good times, turtles help to bring some good luck," Jackson said. ($1=3.6 ringgit)