1. The Foreign Reserve in the Federal bank drop below USD 100 Billion for the first time since post-2008 crisis.

2. Malaysian Ringgit depreciated to RM 4.12 to 1 USD on 17 August 2015, the lowest sin 1997 Asia Financial Crisis.

3. Devaluation of Chinese Yuan on 11st August 2015 has caused a panic across the Asia markets, triggering the fear of a currency war that may simulate the 1997 Asia Financial Crisis. Funds are leaving several major stock markets in Asia. Most of the Asian currency has depreciated against USD 3 days streak after the surprising move by China.

4. Weakening commodity prices, especially crude oil and palm oil prices, further reduce the confidence of investors towards Malaysia.

5. Brent oil price stood at USD 47.21 per bbl; a 56% discount from it's peak at USD 105 per bbl about a year ago. Petronas, a state-owned oil and gas giant, has seen a whopping 57% drop in the upstream business revenue, from RM 32.4 billion to RM 14 billion comparing year -to-date in FY14 and FY15.

6. The palm oil price also dropped 56% from USD 1,250/MT to USD 575/MT.

7. GST of 6% was imposed starting 1st April 2015. Malaysians has to pay more for the same goods, which in turn discourage consumer spending especially the wage earners.

8. Property market also slowdown recently, making the property stocks lackluster. Federal loan tightening has led to increased loan rejection rate among home buyers. Foreign speculators are filter out of the market since the RPGT was drastically increased since 2013.

9. Debt laden government investment arm 1MDB was revealed to have invested the money without due diligence, and accumulated a 42billion debt over the years. Since then, foreign funds has started to leave Malaysian capital market. RM 9.152billion funds has left Malaysia in 2014.

10. The capital exodus is exaggerated up to RM15billion has left Malaysia up to mid August 2015, when the Prime Minister is involved in a political scandal of receiving a RM2.6 billion "Political Donation" from abroad, and a series of extreme measure taken to interrupt the investigation against him.

11. International investors has decided to leave Malaysia, despite that the Federal Governor Tan Sri Zeti Aziz reiterated that Ringgit is undervalued on 13 August 2015. Earlier in April 2015, she made a similar statement when Ringgit was observed at a depreciating trend.

12. Hidden risk ahead as the United States Federal Reserve rate revision in September 2015, further expanding the gap between the weakening Asian currency against USD.

13. Even though China has stated that the Chinese Yuan devaluation was a one-off event on 11st August 2015, the Yuan was de-valuated further in the next day. There is still a possibility for China to make currency adjustment whenever deemed necessary. China GDP growth is seen slowing down to 7.7% since their last peak in 2007, at 14.2%.

14. Malaysians are very much angered by the recent political dramas and the mishandling of taxpayer's money by the government and the fact that they felt democracy is being challenged. A Bersih 4.0 Rally is scheduled on 29th and 30th of August. Too many uncertainties at this moment to predict what will actually happen during the rally, as the ruling coalition has been growing extremes in the measures taken to ensure the continuation of their reign.

15. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) was almost halved in 1H2015 compared to previous year, dropping from RM 36.6 billion to RM 21.3 billion despite a 1.3% growth in overall investment in Malaysia to RM 113.5billion.

 

Source: http://breadandbut.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-new-era-in-malaysia-economy.html