ALL foreign direct investments, including those from China, should be open to public scrutiny, a forum heard today. 

Panellists at a roundtable discussion “China’s investments – Economic and Geopolitical Effects” said the government must publish the key performance indicators (KPI)s and achievements of foreign investors every six months for greater transparency. 

“In general, I would say investment is a good thing, but when it comes to this new normal that China is influencing now, you can see that right from the beginning, there are questions about governance, transparency, competitiveness of the issuance of the contracts,” a panelist Wan Saiful Wan Jan said in a press conference. 

Wan Saiful,  who is Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs chief executive, said not only were Malay companies affected, non-Malay companies would also not have the opportunity to compete when contracts were signed without open tender process.

“With that kind of starting point, it raises questions and concerns about how are we going to proceed in the future with this. If we start at the negative point, at the weak governance point, the worries only get worse.”

Perkasa’s economic bureau chairman Ruhanie Ahmad said there was no prejudice against Chinese investments, but the government must introduce policies that allowed the public to keep track of foreign investments’ KPIs.

“Perkasa is urging the government to study all the empirical cases about failures or dominance of Chinese investors in other countries in order to provide some input for us, to increase our preparedness in order to handle future anomalies or problems,” he said. 

The Malay right-wing group also called for the government to publish a white paper on the geopolitical implications of China’s One Belt One Road (OBOR) strategy for Malaysa’s labour force, economy, sovereignty and national security. – April 22, 2017.