FIRESIDE CHAT: Political stability the key to stable food production, resources - Syed Hamid
SHAH ALAM - The most important way to progress and move forward in economic growth depends on political stability, says a veteran politician.
Former Cabinet Minister Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar said the best solution to push for a stable economy was to ensure the stability of politics in the nation.
He said political stability was the key to policies that would consider the people’s needs and contribute to progress in the economy.
“I think the most important thing is not the resources you have but to ensure success, you must ensure political stability.
“Without that, you cannot map out or draft policies that will think of the people.
“You will be involved in too many problems and controversies, so I think the most important thing is to have political stability to be able to progress and have very good economic growth,” he told Sinar Daily during the latest episode of Fireside Chat.
He further said economic growth, which progressed from the nation’s stable politics, would gain the investors’ confidence to put in their money, increase people’s job opportunities, and raise the nation’s productivity and revenue.
Syed Hamid also touched on climate change which became a concern to the global community and the Ukraine-Russian crisis that created issues of food shortage all over the world.
He said all countries were now reorientating themselves to focus on food security, and Malaysia was no exception as the government had given importance to it and asked people to focus on agriculture.
He believed that it was time for food imports to be reduced since the nation had to pay more for the bulk of imported food due to the exchange rate against the Malaysian ringgit.
“Malaysia is very blessed because we have lands that are very good for agriculture, but we also have a lot of lands left unattended too so this is the time for us to focus on how to reduce food imports.
“Remember the exchange rate against Malaysia because our rate is mostly in USD and then when we buy food - the bulk of our food is imported, so we have to pay more,” he said.
He added that the pandemic had left a massive impact on the economy of the nation, hence we should be able to recover and avoid a double shortage of our goods by reducing our dependence on imported products.
“You must remember that we don’t live on an island alone. We are interdependent in the world so we must react and respond accordingly so that the people will not suffer more.
“We have suffered enough during the Covid-19, so now is the time for us to recover.
“Our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and trade growth is very good, but ultimately if our exchange rate is not good because a lot of our export components use imported components in order to make our products, this is a double shortage, so we must be very careful about our planning,” he added.
