Prime Minister Fooled Malaysians with IMD Report

Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Prime Minister Fooled Malaysians with IMD Report

In today's various newspapers/websites, the Malaysian Prime Minister ("PM") has quoted the World Competitiveness Year Book 2007 as a source that Malaysia has gained another mileage in terms of world competitiveness.

On the positive side of it, the PM gave appreciation to the government servants as it has managed to attain 6th placing amongst 55 nations under the government efficiency category, an improvement from 8th placing in year 2000. I wonder what happened from year 2001 to 2006.

However, there were some confusion when the PM talked about the overall competitiveness category. In two newspapers as stated below, the PM mentioned that Malaysia were placed 6th and 4th (irrelevant placing anyway).

Star newspapers - PM said Malaysia’s economic performance last year was sixth in the world.

Berita Harian - Katanya, Malaysia juga diletakkan di tangga keempat dari segi kecekapan perniagaan tahun lalu, berbanding kedudukan ke-13 pada 2000 (in english - he said, Malaysia has been placed at 4th placing on the business competitiveness aspect last year, compared to 13th placing in year 2000).

Please look at the Overall Scoreboard 2007 downloaded from IMD International where Malaysia is only placed at number 23 with a score of 74.091, compared to number 22 in year 2006. Overall, it's a fall of one placing. In newspapers, the big printings on the title was more important as people seldom read the detailed paragraph.

Humour me, were we fooled? Or the newspaper editors ought to re-state the proper facts?
Tags: IMD International, World Competitiveness Year Book, Malaysian Prime Minister

Labels: Economics