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)