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Article: Malaysia runs down the clock.(Market Horizons)(impact of the 1998 capital and currency controls)(Column)
- Article from:
- Chief Executive (U.S.)
- Article date:
- July 1, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Chief Executive Magazine. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Stand outside the office of Malaysia's prime minister, Mahatir Mohamad, and you may fancy you hear two clocks ticking. The first is set to go off on September 1: the date on which the raft of capital and currency controls imposed on foreign investors a year ago by the Malaysian central bank expires. These were put in place at Mahatir's insistence to counter capital flight; in spite of them, the Malaysian economy has continued on its un-merry way. Even after gentle massaging of the figures, the country's central bank confessed to an 8.6 percent fall in GNP in the last quarter of 1998, the fourth successive quarter of steep decline. Manufacturing output was down 14.3 ...