Malaysia is a country located in Southeast Asia, with a total population of about 32 million people and a land area of approximately 330000 square kilometers. It is a typical Southeast Asian country.
And this is a country whose per capita GDP in 2021, even though greatly affected by the epidemic, still reached $11125, with a total GDP scale of approximately $370 billion.
However, Malaysia does not have any very powerful industries, why is the per capita GDP level so high?
For a long time, the Chinese people have not seemed to have a deep impression of this Southeast Asian country. However, it is undeniable that Malaysia's economic development has shown extremely strong performance.
On the one hand, it benefits from its abundant resources, and on the other hand, it benefits its development strategy and positioning. It is precisely due to the combined effect of these two factors that Malaysia's economic level has achieved good development.
The first pillar industry in Malaysia is the service industry, which accounts for over 50% of its GDP. Prior to the outbreak of the epidemic in 2018, Malaysia's tourism industry accounted for 12% of its GDP and created nearly a quarter of its jobs.
However, it is worth noting that Malaysia's main tourist source comes from Singapore and Indonesia, while China ranks third.
Among Malaysia's foreign tourists, Singapore accounts for a very important proportion, with over 10 million visitors to Malaysia in 2018, ranking second in Indonesia and third in China combined. In some sense, Malaysia's tourism industry is highly dependent on Singaporean tourists.
In this process, these two countries have actually formed a mutually beneficial and win-win relationship, because Singapore, as one of the most economically developed regions in Asia, has a strong consumption capacity that plays a crucial role in Malaysia's tourism industry and greatly promotes its development.
From the perspective of economic structure, although the tourism industry occupies a "niche" in Malaysia and may dominate its government's planning in the future.
However, from a practical perspective, due to the significant impact of the epidemic, it is evident that the international tourism industry will experience a prolonged downturn, which is undoubtedly a very difficult thing for Malaysia.
This has been well reflected in Malaysia's economy. After the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020, Malaysia's GDP directly decreased by more than 5 percentage points. Although this is closely related to the deterioration of the global economy, to some extent, it is also a direct reflection of the impact of the epidemic on its tourism industry.
In addition to the service industry, Malaysia also has another pillar industry.
Thanks to the abundant rubber production and mineral reserves in China, Malaysia has always been one of the important producers of semiconductor industry and rubber related products. It has 54 semiconductor manufacturing industries in the country, accounting for 8% of the global backend semiconductor packaging market share.
At the same time, it is also the world's third largest producer and exporter of natural rubber, occupying half of the rubber market along with Thailand and Indonesia.
In addition, Malaysia also has relatively rich oil and natural gas reserves, with proven crude oil reserves of up to 3.6 billion barrels, making it one of the important exporting countries of liquefied natural gas and oil in Southeast Asia.
From the above brief introduction, it is not difficult to see that although Malaysia has a small population and land area, it has relatively rich natural resources. By mining minerals, planting rubber, and extracting oil and gas, it can obtain certain funds through foreign trade.
At the same time, Malaysia is also focusing on the layout of the tertiary industry, and the tourism industry is developing well. Relying on the tourist resources of countries such as Singapore, its cultural and tourism industry is also relatively large and has achieved good development.
At the same time, in the high-tech industry, Malaysia has built a large number of semiconductor factories by introducing foreign investment. This is also considered one of the important industries in its future development.
From this perspective, Malaysia's economy is showing a diversified development trend, and it is not surprising that the per capita GDP level is much higher than that of neighboring countries such as Indonesia and Thailand.
In fact, in order to understand Malaysia's economy, a very simple word to describe it is' holding your thighs'.
In 1957, Malaysia gained independence. In the following years, he has been deeply influenced by ethnic issues. Singapore, now part of Malaysia, declared independence in 1965 due to conflicts between the two sides.
Since then, these two countries, Singapore, have embarked on the path of high-tech industry, while Malaysia has tightly embraced a "golden thigh", which is Japan.
After Japan's defeat in World War II, relying on the indulgence of the United States, it quickly emerged from the adverse effects of the war. This is particularly reflected in the economic aspect.
From 1950 to 1970, Japan first achieved the reconstruction of its industrial base and economic development through orders for the Korean War and the Vietnam War.
Subsequently, starting in 1970, Japan focused on manufacturing and needed to import a large amount of raw materials. At this point, Malaysia began to choose to mix with Japan, becoming an important raw material procurement market.
At that time, Japan's key industries began to transform from the original steel industry to the automotive manufacturing industry. The automobile manufacturing industry obviously not only needs to produce cars, but also includes a series of industries such as fuel and tires.
At this time, Malaysia, which has abundant oil and gas reserves and rubber production, is clearly a good choice.
At this time, Malaysia tightly embraced Japan's "golden thigh", and with Japan's "Shenwu boom" in the last century, Malaysia also developed rapidly, with an average annual economic growth rate of over 10% in the 1990s. Obviously, during this period, Malaysia gained the "first bucket of gold" for economic development through Japan's east wind.
With the strengthening of economic and trade exchanges with Japan, Malaysia is gradually transitioning rapidly towards a resource exporting country. The country's economic growth and dependence on foreign trade, especially trade with Japan. Although it has achieved rapid development, it has also led to its "congenital deficiency" economic development pattern.
During this process, some industries in Japan began to be phased out and transformed, and low-end manufacturing began to flow out to Malaysia. It gradually began to develop some low-end industries from its original resource-based countries. During this period, Malaysians showed promise for the future and hoped to become a developed country by 2020.
However, with the signing of the Plaza Agreement in the 1990s, Japan's domestic economic foam finally burst in 1997. The originally vigorous and upward development of Japan's economy suddenly plummeted, resulting in a significant decline. Malaysia, holding onto Japan's thighs, also fell into stagnation.
Later in 1997, Soros led international hot money to "kill all sides" in Southeast Asia. Although the Malaysian government responded appropriately and did not fall by surprise, the domestic economy also fell into stagnation as a result.
Until now, Malaysia's economic model was still dominated by low-end outsourcing, with a focus on labor-intensive industries.
However, as a large number of foreign enterprises began to swarm into China, Malaysia's best era has passed. From a population perspective, Malaysia has a population of 30 million, while China has a population of over 1 billion.
And population means the number of workers. With the rise of China's manufacturing industry, Malaysia's low-end OEM industry has almost suffered a devastating blow, and the dream of becoming a developed country has also disappeared.
Obviously, the decision to 'embrace the thighs' helped Malaysia secure a large number of orders from Japan, while also leading to a high degree of economic convergence between Malaysia and Japan. Ultimately, when Japan faced an economic crisis, Malaysia was not able to stand alone.
During this period, although Malaysia's economic development had a large total amount, its industrial structure was not very good, its technological level was not high, and it was inevitable that the manufacturing industry faced a slump. Malaysia's economy can be described as "holding onto the thigh" for success and "holding onto the thigh" for failure.
Fortunately, after losing Japan's golden thigh, Malaysia had another silver thigh, which was Singapore, which had gained independence from Malaysia at that time.
In the 1980s, Malaysia and Singapore embarked on two different paths. Malaysia focuses on low-end industries, while Singapore focuses on high-end manufacturing, technology, and finance industries.
Singapore and Malaysia have been developing the semiconductor industry since the end of the last century, with Singapore producing technology and Malaysia producing labor and materials. Through this mutually beneficial and win-win model, both sides have gradually become one of the important semiconductor manufacturers in the world.
Although facing the impact of China's manufacturing industry, it is still one of the important production locations.
From the previous text, it is not difficult to see that there is a certain difference between Malaysia's embrace of the Singapore thigh and the previous embrace of the Japanese thigh.
Compared to the previous low-end industries, the domestic manufacturing industry structure has undergone a significant upgrade, and the overall economic structure of the country is also more reasonable.
The tourism industry has become one of its pillar industries, and even if there are some impacts on the manufacturing industry, it will not lead to serious consequences, and the ability to resist risks has been strengthened to a certain extent. This has a relatively positive significance for the development of its economy.
However, Malaysia's economy is highly dependent on foreign trade and tourism, and overall it still shows a high degree of dependence on the outside world. However, from the perspective of economic development level, Malaysia has indeed done very well.
In fact, if Malaysia continues to develop its economy step by step, it can also maintain high water growth. But the arrival of the epidemic is clearly unfortunate news for this small Southeast Asian country.
So in the era of the pandemic, where should Malaysia go?
On the one hand, the economic structure has led to Malaysia's extreme dependence on foreign trade and tourism.
In the context of globalization, the development prospects of the above-mentioned industries are relatively good. We can also see that Malaysia hopes to transform its position as a resource exporting country, and this attempt is clearly more appropriate.
With the global spread of the epidemic and the rise of trade protectionism. Malaysia's two major economic pillars, foreign trade and tourism, have been affected to varying degrees.
In terms of foreign trade, Malaysia experienced a severe winter in 2020. Its total foreign trade has decreased by 3.6 percentage points compared to 2019.
Although the economic and trade relations with China have shown a positive trend, the epidemic has still had a serious impact on them.
At the same time, the epidemic has also affected the source of foreign tourists, posing a serious challenge to Malaysia's tourism industry.
Under the dual impact, Malaysia's GDP in 2020 decreased by approximately 5 percentage points compared to 2019. The pain caused by the epidemic still has a significant impact.
In addition, the level of welfare and security system in Malaysia is relatively good, and the pressure on the country from medical and financial expenses is still significant.
I look forward to this small Southeast Asian country getting rid of the shadow of the epidemic and embarking on its own right path as soon as possible.