Malaysia faces longer-term challenges too
THE year 2014 will be singled out as an annus horribilis for Malaysia's national carrier, marked by the disappearance of its ill-fated Beijing-bound aircraft along with the 239 people who were onboard. As the world ponders the question that has confounded it for the last 18 days - "Where is MH370?" - a longer-term question to be considered is, "Where is Malaysia going?"
It now has less than six years to go before 2020 - the year by which the country is supposed to attain its "Wawasan 2020", the much-vaunted vision of becoming a fully developed nation. Even as the country moves forward, the engine that drives it is not as robust as before. Last year, Malaysia recorded a gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 4.7 per cent - down from 5.6 per cent in 2012, and lower than its average annual growth of 4.9 per cent from 2000 to 2012.
The prognosis for the future is not much better - the World Bank's forecast for Malaysia's growth rate this year stands at 4.8 per cent, followed by 4.9 per cent for 2015 and 2016. This falls short of the 6 per cent growth that Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said the country needs over the coming years to achieve the 2020 objective.
Malaysia is also plagued by problems that will hamper its potential for long-term growth. Its performance on the Corruption Perception Index has stayed middling. Last year, it was ranked 53rd out of 177 countries. Here, yet another expectation has been heaped on 2020's shoulders; Malaysia now aims to be among the index's top 30 countries by 2020.
The country's quality of education also poses questions about its ability to sustain a highly skilled workforce. In the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment (Pisa), students in Malaysia lagged other lower-income countries in the region, such as Vietnam. Here, another far-off goal has been set - to be ranked in the top third of Pisa by 2025. But for now, the students who do excel have a tendency to leave - the World Bank estimated that one-third of the one million Malaysian emigrants in 2010 were of the brain-drain variety.
Even so, many other things are going well for Malaysia. Its budget deficit as a percentage of GDP is the lowest it has been in years, while the unemployment rate is below pre-crisis levels. Its central bank has masterfully steered it through the last few financial crises. Even so, exasperation appeared to outweigh mollification last year when the ruling coalition saw its weakest performance at the polls with 47 per cent of the popular vote.
This week, as investigators search for MH370's black box, they will be working against time and bad odds as poor weather and the box's limited battery life conspire against them. In many other ways, the clock is ticking on Malaysia. And where its long-term goals are concerned, who can say whether the odds are any better.
