Impact of Ongoing Global Economic Crisis on Malaysia's Trade Relations with Its Major Trading Partners

摘要

Malaysia's quest to become a fully developed nation by 2020 is being facilitated by its globally competitive International Trade Regime (ITR), which has yielded a burgeoning trade worth more than RM One Trillion for a tiny nation of 27 million people in 2010 The impact of ongoing financial crisis across the world is significantly different for each nation and is dependent on its economic and social developments. The first economic crisis that hit Malaysia badly happened in 1997 when its currency (Malaysian Ringget — RM) was attacked by global speculators, and financial gamblers causing abrupt depreciation of its currency. Malaysia protected itself by instituting exchange controls against the policy recommendations of International Monetary Fund (IMF) and pursuing a fixed exchange rate policy; that served Malaysia very well; though this policy was criticized throughout the world by economic pundits. However, it rescued its economy from collapse successfully.