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12 comments on A Visit To Malaysia
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12 comments on A Visit To Malaysia
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GAIA Host Collective
For those who are unfamiliar with this area, Langkawi is at the border with Thailand on the Mallaca Straits side of the Malay Penninsula. It was the former Prime Minister"s home area and he made it a showcase to support a moribund area. New airport, harbor, roads, visitor center, convention center,state run resorts etc. which attract further investment.
The oil from Malaysia comes from the most distant end of the country, about 1000 miles away. These areas are both Moslem enclaves. I spent many years sailing this country and agree with Big Gav that the people are well informed and have legitimate complaints on how the oil revenue is wasted. They also seen to have forgotten that their country got all the good bits left over from the breakup of the previous state which included Singapore and most of Borneo. Sort of a lucky land grab for them. They have lucked out by fighting the IMF [ and winning ] and getting all the oil. But time is running out for them and they have the usual over population problem. It's a country with high tech enclaves and the rest is rural or jungle.
Their prognosis is poor once the oil stops getting imported and world trade slows down . Fortunately their government will be able to learn from the examples of England, Australia, US,etc.
Might be a good idea if they established a sovereign wealth fund, cut down on the sense of communal entitlement and stopped dreaming of becoming a first world country. Good advice for us also.
I reckon this I'll still be able to refuel here for the next decade, even if the price is higher. Best wishes to the people of Malaysia.
Dave on Meander
Hi. First time poster longtime lurker.
Just a couple of clarifications. There are two areas of offshore production in Malaysia. One is off the coast of the state of Terengganu, about 250-300 miles from the island of Langkawi that Big Gav visited. The other is off the north coast of Borneo, essentially the same production fields that give Brunei (an independent sovereign nation) their oil. That area is the one about 1000 miles away.
Terengganu is as Moslem as any other non-heavily urbanized state of the peninsula, although the state north of Terengganu (named Kelantan) has a state government led by a party with a conservative religious outlook, in contrast with the national (Federal) government a multi-ethnic coalition.
And neither is Sarawak state a Moslem enclave, whose state government is staunchly pro-business (to the detriment of the environment). Brunei, an independent country squeezed between Sarawak and Sabah states, however is a country with a populace that is relatively conservative but run by a pro-western Sultan.
As far as the lucky land grab, it was more a matter of political convenience between the peninsular states and the former British Borneo areas of Sarawak and Sabah, in the mid-sixties when the Brits left it to their colonies of the area how to group themselves. Peninsular Malaysia had no means of grabbing anything (Malaysia in fact had to ask the Brits and allies to help stop attacks by Indonesia in the sixties).