'The country hasn't declined worse because of oil but no country with such a burden can go up. The only way to go is down, unless there is a political change.'

Country in the red as 2009 FDI nosedives 81%

Cala: Truly shocking. As a nation, all data on Malaysia points to it as fast becoming a failed state. We need foreign direct investments (FDI) because foreign capital helps us to set up plants to provide employment opportunities to our school leavers. A net inflow indicates investors' confidence in our system. Conversely, a negative inflow spells trouble to the regime.

Here is the dark picture deducing from the data. First, FDI in 2009 plunged 81% from 2008. In fact, the FDI outflow in 2009 was 5.81 times than the inflow. Second, Malaysia could not compete with Thailand and Indonesia in attracting FDI. At best it attracted only 23% of Thailand and 28.32% of Indonesia respectively. Third, looking at it from the lens of Southeast Asia as a whole, our paltry share of 3.75% of total FDI of RM118.02 billion is truly shocking.

More significantly, when there is a healthy trend of FDI flowing into Southeast Asia (RM118.02 billion inflow versus RM68.25 billion outflow), Malaysia appears as a bad apple that points southward.

We need a breakdown on this FDI outflow for 2009. I just talked to my son. According to his friend, 2009 was special in its own way because Bank Negara had encouraged local banks to expand overseas. Maybank, CIMB, and Hong Leong had apparently invested in Indonesia and Cambodia, etc.

Kgen: Malaysia is in a deep pit now - racial policies, ‘kulitocracy' instead of meritocracy, high loss of skilled workers, stagnant income, declining foreign investment, super high corruption, high wastage, unfettered unproductive spending especially on defence, useless mega projects, diminishing natural resources, low university standard, authoritarian government with no checks and balance, whorehouse judiciary, useless MACC (Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission), controlled media, etc.

The end result is a depreciated currency and general poverty. The country hasn't declined worse because of oil but no country with such a burden can go up. The only way to go is down, unless there is a political change.

The so-called FDI outflows has all the signs of capital flight. Even local investors do not want to invest in Malaysia. When racists like Perkasa are allowed to run free, where is the confidence among investors? Is this a good time to dismantle our racial policies? Otherwise, maid exporting country, here we come.

Anonymous: Umno Malays need to come to realisation that they cannot take the country as theirs, do what they like as if they are above the laws of the land and stop holding Malaysia to ransom.

Many of such Malays had forgotten their true values of 'biar mati anak, jangan mati adat'. If Umno is the 'anak' and Malaysia is the 'adat', then we should rather sacrifice Umno for the survival of Malaysia.

The way Umno Malays conducted themselves do not give a good impression to investors. Those in BN component parties acting in cohort with Umno, or rather their inaction, do not bode well for FDI as well. They should love the country more than themselves.

Anonymous2: Well, one does not need to be a rocket scientist to see why foreign investors are running scared of this country. Corruption is definitely the main reason as it will just add to their cost of doing business tremendously.

Secondly, look at our courts, the judgments made by our so-called learned judges are a joke. Foreigners know they will never get legal redress and they are probably right.

Now look at all our other institutions, the police, local authorities, enforcement agencies, etc, all have gone to the dogs. Yes, a total and complete overhaul of the leaders, administration, civil servants, policies, systems and institutions are in order.

Good men: You don't have to scratch too deep beneath the surface to find the reasons why FDI crashed. For too many years now the web of corruption from top ministers right down to the lowest civil servant means that our country's system is broken.

Ability, hard work, honesty, and ingenuity are not rewarded. We are not retaining the best and the brightest. Instead these are being filtered out by a system that is broken beyond repair. only a wholesale overhaul will ever convince investors, foreign or local, that their money and effort would be well-rewarded here.

Ex-Merchant Banker: Malaysia's situation is exacerbated by many large locally-listed corporations 'investing' overseas: disguised as 'diversification' or 'strategically' repositioning their assets.

Wira: The dip in FDI could be a long-term thing vis-a-vis our neighbours as we have priced our costs to be less competitive to that of our neighbours in low-cost manufacturing. Why would investors want to invest in this country for manufacturing if we have to import labour from outside? They might as well go to the countries where the labour are from.

Tan Kian Khim: What a resounding vote of confidence in Najib Razak's Umno-BN regime. Najib's mercenary spin doctors can spin all they like, real businessmen know to take their business elsewhere.

Using the flimsy '1Malaysia' pitch to sell Malaysia's sordid federal government, corrupt institutions, endless stream of scandals and failed crony economics to foreign investors is like spraying perfume on a rotting fish and trying to fob it off on a professional sushi chef.

I expect Najib's pet Ibrahim Ali will now shout at international investors for insulting Perkasa rights and demand that Malaysian taxpayers should pay for him to fly to New York to burn Excel spreadsheets in front of the United Nations building.

Pemerhati: The report clearly shows that Malaysia is losing out on FDI to its neighbours and there is also a lot of capital leaving the country. FDI is going to countries where there is better governance and ready availability of the right type of workers.

Capital could be leaving the country because some local companies are expanding overseas and because the BN thieves are sending their ill-gotten billions to foreign countries, and because ordinary Malaysians are sending their money overseas as they have lost faith in the future of the country.

Malaysia has a lot of talented people from all over Asia and it can easily become another Taiwan or Korea if we embrace meritocracy, regard all Malaysians as bumiputeras and have clean and able leaders.

Yuvan: What the UN report says does not matter. It will be refuted by our PM/finance minister and other BN ministers who are ever willing to 'project' themselves as more knowledgeable and intelligent than any economist or economic analyst in the whole world.

Although it can be said that FDIs alone do not necessarily reflect the strength or status of the country's economy, any drop in FDIs is an indicator of clear lack of confidence and trust of the foreigners in the country's socio-economic performance. Malaysia cannot continue to pretend that its economic fundamentals are still strong.

The severe drop of more than 80 percent in FDIs last year shows beyond any doubt that foreigners have dumped Malaysia for good. They are willing to invest in other countries in the region where operational costs are more competitive with reliable infrastructure (reliable public transport, communication systems, etc), a technology savvy workforce and above all, less 'red-tape' and other 'hindrances'.

Not Confused: Of course, FDIs have taken a nose-dive. Foreign investors are looking for opportunities in stable countries demonstrating honesty, integrity and transparency in their business dealings.

To the chagrin of the BN ruling coalition, the alternative media are relentlessly exposing the truth about corruption, a tainted BN partial judiciary, rampant nepotism and cronyism. Only when these scourges are eliminated will the really serious FDIs return to these shores.

Unfortunately, if this doesn't happen soon, it may be too late to stop Malaysia becoming the poorest in Asia. No amount of expensive, tissue-thin ‘unity' slogans will help to reverse the trend.

Joe: Our race-based economic policies and systemic racial discrimination have crippled our nation's economic efficiency and competitiveness. It has caused a huge loss as our professionals, technocrats, managers and other well-qualified workers are leaving our shores. Even as I write this, we are losing our best and brightest to the world.

The government's flip-flop policies and rampant corruption which has gone unchecked also do not lend confidence to foreign investors that they can do business with this administration. The net decline in our cumulative FDI, the first time in the last 15 years, is indeed alarming. It does not sit well for our economic aim to be a high-income nation.

Petestop: I travel a lot to Shenzhen, China, in the course of my work. There, people don't talk about wanting to do something, they just do it. Like for example, Penang was promised a mass rapid transit by successive PMs for the past decades. In Shenzhen, they just do it and make it happen. It says a lot about how the government is making things happen and how we are being left behind in global competitiveness.

Still, every time you pick up our local newspaper, again and again, Malaysia still stuck with racial issues and a federal government who just know how to bully and undermine state governments under the opposition, totally abusing the institutions that is suppose to stay neutral.

We are R&D (research and development) company and we find it hard to hire the required talent with local universities churning out unemployable graduates. So much so that we have to participate much earlier to develop the manpower, by hiring industrial trainees and offering the good ones position in our companies even before they graduate.

However, that means a lag of one year before they graduate. That is if you are lucky that they are not snatched up by MNCs (multinational corporations) here who are more into manufacturing, who just gobble up the best brains - those who could have contributed much more by doing R&D.

Mohd Hazwan: Is this signs of some kind of sanctions imposed by the world on us. I hope not.

Hamisu: Finally, data that speaks for itself. Please, Prime Minister Najib Razak, explain how we are going to meet the high-income economy target when reality speaks otherwise of silly goals and targets as announced by you.

Setting impossible goals is only feasible if you make impossible changes. However, this is not the case. I would re-emphasise again that doing the same thing over again and expecting different results is no different from planning to fail.