May 08 2007
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong visited Internet giant Yahoo (Sunnyvale, U.S.) on Monday for a personal look at the company’s new technology and the economic opportunities they offer. Mr Lee spent an hour in a closed-door meeting with Yahoo executives including co-founder Jerry Yang and chief executive Terry Semel.
“We just want to learn about the prosperous growth of the US economy and the non-stop innovation in this great country … We are a small country so we want to learn what is happening in the outside world so that we can contribute” – Mr Lee said after getting private demonstrations of new Yahoo products.
Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO, stock) vice president of international emerging markets Keith Nelson said “Lee has a keen interest in technology and asked a number of very smart questions about Yahoo and the Internet space … Yahoo has had operations in Singapore for a decade and has been in discussions with its government for a long time.”Mr Lee and Yahoo executives discussed increasing the Internet giant’s investment in Singapore and having it use the country as a “hub” for doing business throughout the region, according to Nelson.
Maybe it’s time for Malaysian Government to “retaliate” by doing the same thing – to visit and ask some intelligent questions but most importantly is to attract some of the Information Technology giants to Malaysia’s MSC (Multimedia Super Corridor). Going by the tradition, Malaysian Prime Minister Badawi should visit Yahoo’s competitor, Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG, stock), instead. If Badawi is able to impress Google’s founder Larry Page and Sergey Brin, I’m sure it’ll be frontpaged for weeks to come. Isn’t this the easiest way to promote Malaysia in the eyes of the globe? But then, Google has already planned (early 2007) to convert its existing office in Singapore into Southeast Asia’s HQ (didn’t Malaysian Ministers do something to attract Google then?).
Could you imagine what will happen to Malaysia’s export data should there be no palm-oils and oil to export? A big “deficit” in trade, mind you. Instead of depending solely on palm-oils and petroleum, Malaysia should follows (or rather copy) Singapore’s roadmap for long-term survival (hey, if you don’t have the brain, copy others’ strategy could be the best way to survive). I believe with the strong foundation in Bio-Technology, Information Technology, Financial Center and most recently Tourism (why do you think Singapore allows casinos to be built?), Singapore has charted the smartest way for its survival into decades to come.
Malaysia definitely has the human capital to do it – it’s a matter of whether the government is willing to think “BIG” in retaining them. Where do you think Singapore gets all those brains from? Instead of screaming this gentleman or lady is a “Malaysian” after he/she gains recognition elsewhere, why can’t the government retains these brains within the country?
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May 8th, 2007 by financetwitter
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