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  • Can South East Asia save Brexit?


    https://www.ft.com/content/ff258af2-...3abf4?mhq5j=e6

    Malaysia is a land of driving on the left, three-point British-style plugs and an elite with plummy English accents who can discourse knowledgeably on Boris Johnson’s career plans. There’s even still an ancient concrete cricket pitch on Merdeka Square, the spot in Kuala Lumpur where the Union Jack was lowered on the night of Malaysia’s independence in 1957. And the country’s prime minister, Najib Razak, is an old boy of Britain’s Malvern College and Nottingham University.

    If Brexiters have a plan, it involves upwardly mobile former colonies such as Malaysia and Singapore. These are supposed to replace European countries as the UK’s key trading partners.*Many Brexiters also imagine “global Britain” as a swashbuckling trade hub à la Singapore. Daniel Hannan, theorist of Brexit, launched his free-trading think-tank last month by saying, “I’m looking at [the] high commissioner of Singapore [in the front row]. They have gone from being half as rich as us to twice as rich. What was the magic formula? Just do it. They dropped their barriers.”

    Can Southeast Asia save Brexit? Visiting the region last week, I asked local investors and officials what they thought. Certainly, Britons once dominated business there. “When I first came to Kuala Lumpur in 1968, the bus tickets were printed in London,” one retired businessman told me, “and the British trading houses were everything.” That’s over. Most Malaysian elites now regard the UK chiefly as a place to study, buy property and watch football. Today the UK is only Malaysia’s 17th largest trading partner.

    Might that be because we’ve been held back by the EU, which can’t even conclude free-trade deals with Malaysia and Singapore? Not exactly. Germany and the Netherlands out-trade Britain with Malaysia. And Singapore’s high commissioner, Chi Hsia Foo, told a gathering in London last month: “You will be surprised to learn you are not our largest trading partner in the EU.” The Germans, Dutch and French rank higher.

    Britain and Singapore are already in informal trade talks, Foo told me. But British trade with the region would have to skyrocket to compensate for even the mildest dip in British-European trade. The UK’s trade with Malaysia in 2015 totalled 16.45bn ringgit (£2.75bn). British-Belgian trade was about £25bn.

    I didn’t meet any Malaysian businesspeople who expected skyrocketing trade. One investor foresaw a failed Brexit putting Jeremy Corbyn into Downing Street. “Then Britain becomes uninvestable, like in the 1970s.” A very senior investor gave me his take on Brexit: “Odd!” He knows London intimately, and always considered it the obvious spot for a European headquarters. But as another businessman grumbled: “Now you will have to have two European offices, one in London and one in the EU. Knowing Malaysians, they’ll still have a London office because they like English football.”

    Most Malaysian businesspeople talked about Brexit more as a personal than a business issue. The pound’s slide made flats and university fees cheaper. On the downside,*an anti-immigration UK might not want their children — already, many Malaysians prefer to study in Australia.

    I heard several complaints that Brexit was distracting British decision-makers from other issues. One entrepreneur said he’d been told by an overburdened British bank: “You are our last priority.” British officials, desperate for trade deals, don’t have the head space to brainstorm with Southeast Asians about the geopolitical risks of a rising China. Nor are they busy pressuring Malaysia’s leader Najib about his jailing of the country’s de facto opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim. Anwar’s daughter, Nurul Izzah, told me: “Right now the British concern seems to be better trade and economic ties between the countries.”

    But Brexit isn’t keeping Malaysians awake. The fact is that they don’t need Britain any more. “There are too many other options now,” says Chandran Nair, the Malaysian who heads the Global Institute for Tomorrow think-tank. Empire is over. Towering over that Kuala Lumpur cricket pitch are Chinese-style skyscrapers. One evening, listening to the Islamic call to prayer fill the air, I wondered whether nativist Brexiters would really find Malaysia so congenial. Swiss investigators claim that billions were misappropriated from companies linked to a sovereign fund Najib created; he denies wrongdoing. Are Brexiters sure he's a better partner than Jean-Claude Juncker?

    As for Britain becoming a cold Singapore, no one I spoke to could see it. Foo noted that Singapore is a much smaller country than Britain, in a much more populous region. Nor did she consider her country low-tax and low-regulation. Singapore regulates tightly, and its corporation tax rate is 17 per cent, exactly the level the UK had already decided to drop to pre-Brexit. Other people pointed out that Singapore has by some measures the world’s highest-ranked schools system, the world’s second-busiest port, and a majority-immigrant population — not like Britain, then. London could be Singapore. Britain can’t.

    It’s easy to spin political fantasies about faraway countries. I flew home with the funny feeling that for many Brexiters trade is an afterthought, a retrospective justification for a Brexit driven by deeper instincts.

    Comment


    • Originally posted by zara View Post
      Can South East Asia save Brexit?


      https://www.ft.com/content/ff258af2-...3abf4?mhq5j=e6

      Malaysia is a land of driving on the left, three-point British-style plugs and an elite with plummy English accents who can discourse knowledgeably on Boris Johnson’s career plans. There’s even still an ancient concrete cricket pitch on Merdeka Square, the spot in Kuala Lumpur where the Union Jack was lowered on the night of Malaysia’s independence in 1957. And the country’s prime minister, Najib Razak, is an old boy of Britain’s Malvern College and Nottingham University.

      If Brexiters have a plan, it involves upwardly mobile former colonies such as Malaysia and Singapore. These are supposed to replace European countries as the UK’s key trading partners.*Many Brexiters also imagine “global Britain” as a swashbuckling trade hub à la Singapore. Daniel Hannan, theorist of Brexit, launched his free-trading think-tank last month by saying, “I’m looking at [the] high commissioner of Singapore [in the front row]. They have gone from being half as rich as us to twice as rich. What was the magic formula? Just do it. They dropped their barriers.”

      Can Southeast Asia save Brexit? Visiting the region last week, I asked local investors and officials what they thought. Certainly, Britons once dominated business there. “When I first came to Kuala Lumpur in 1968, the bus tickets were printed in London,” one retired businessman told me, “and the British trading houses were everything.” That’s over. Most Malaysian elites now regard the UK chiefly as a place to study, buy property and watch football. Today the UK is only Malaysia’s 17th largest trading partner.

      Might that be because we’ve been held back by the EU, which can’t even conclude free-trade deals with Malaysia and Singapore? Not exactly. Germany and the Netherlands out-trade Britain with Malaysia. And Singapore’s high commissioner, Chi Hsia Foo, told a gathering in London last month: “You will be surprised to learn you are not our largest trading partner in the EU.” The Germans, Dutch and French rank higher.

      Britain and Singapore are already in informal trade talks, Foo told me. But British trade with the region would have to skyrocket to compensate for even the mildest dip in British-European trade. The UK’s trade with Malaysia in 2015 totalled 16.45bn ringgit (£2.75bn). British-Belgian trade was about £25bn.

      I didn’t meet any Malaysian businesspeople who expected skyrocketing trade. One investor foresaw a failed Brexit putting Jeremy Corbyn into Downing Street. “Then Britain becomes uninvestable, like in the 1970s.” A very senior investor gave me his take on Brexit: “Odd!” He knows London intimately, and always considered it the obvious spot for a European headquarters. But as another businessman grumbled: “Now you will have to have two European offices, one in London and one in the EU. Knowing Malaysians, they’ll still have a London office because they like English football.”

      Most Malaysian businesspeople talked about Brexit more as a personal than a business issue. The pound’s slide made flats and university fees cheaper. On the downside,*an anti-immigration UK might not want their children — already, many Malaysians prefer to study in Australia.

      I heard several complaints that Brexit was distracting British decision-makers from other issues. One entrepreneur said he’d been told by an overburdened British bank: “You are our last priority.” British officials, desperate for trade deals, don’t have the head space to brainstorm with Southeast Asians about the geopolitical risks of a rising China. Nor are they busy pressuring Malaysia’s leader Najib about his jailing of the country’s de facto opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim. Anwar’s daughter, Nurul Izzah, told me: “Right now the British concern seems to be better trade and economic ties between the countries.”

      But Brexit isn’t keeping Malaysians awake. The fact is that they don’t need Britain any more. “There are too many other options now,” says Chandran Nair, the Malaysian who heads the Global Institute for Tomorrow think-tank. Empire is over. Towering over that Kuala Lumpur cricket pitch are Chinese-style skyscrapers. One evening, listening to the Islamic call to prayer fill the air, I wondered whether nativist Brexiters would really find Malaysia so congenial. Swiss investigators claim that billions were misappropriated from companies linked to a sovereign fund Najib created; he denies wrongdoing. Are Brexiters sure he's a better partner than Jean-Claude Juncker?

      As for Britain becoming a cold Singapore, no one I spoke to could see it. Foo noted that Singapore is a much smaller country than Britain, in a much more populous region. Nor did she consider her country low-tax and low-regulation. Singapore regulates tightly, and its corporation tax rate is 17 per cent, exactly the level the UK had already decided to drop to pre-Brexit. Other people pointed out that Singapore has by some measures the world’s highest-ranked schools system, the world’s second-busiest port, and a majority-immigrant population — not like Britain, then. London could be Singapore. Britain can’t.

      It’s easy to spin political fantasies about faraway countries. I flew home with the funny feeling that for many Brexiters trade is an afterthought, a retrospective justification for a Brexit driven by deeper instincts.
      Thats a good article and rather than see it in a negative way I would look at it and use it to achieve and address trade issues where the UK has become complacent. If you don't look after a marketplace it goes elsewhere...clearly alot has changed since my Grandfather was stationed there and to expect Malaysia/ Singapore or anywhere to give preferential treatment to the UK is flawed thinking from the onset...You fight for trade by first of all giving your brand a face that is recognisable and trusted. This has been lacking for many reasons. UK trade with former colonies in my opinion was secondary after we became intertwined with the EU making us somewhat lazy or put another way side tracked by our trade with countries within the EU. We want to to trade with the EU countries but I think its time we looked further afield and made our own way once again, without EU interference. S.E Asia is a massive market and as in life things come full circle. Time for us to exploit our language and our history and reignite past relationships. It's only hard work and that never did anybody any harm!!

      Comment


      • I can see you are struggling slightly luv so let's leave it to Mr Pie

        Comment


        • Originally posted by Toby View Post
          I can see you are struggling slightly luv so let's leave it to Mr Pie

          Lol! He is funny, even if he is a corbynite.

          Soz been busy! Despatley trying to learn spanish so i help with my daughters homework so not much time to be remoaning..

          And now my new adopted home wants to suceed! Not from the EU but spain... what is wrong with everyone? This nonsense is all a race to the bottom, catalonia, scotland, brexit (and now kurdistan too) lets have a world of a million tiny countries that all hate each other.. what a pisstake!
          Last edited by zara; 17 Oct 17,, 02:01.

          Comment


          • Rant over, rioja is very cheap here!

            Comment


            • Originally posted by zara View Post
              Lol! He is funny, even if he is a corbynite.

              Soz been busy! Despatley trying to learn spanish so i help with my daughters homework so not much time to be remoaning..

              And now my new adopted home wants to suceed! Not from the EU but spain... what is wrong with everyone? This nonsense is all a race to the bottom, catalonia, scotland, brexit (and now kurdistan too) lets have a world of a million tiny countries that all hate each other.. what a pisstake!
              Hes just giving vent to the frustration that everybody feels at the moment.We're in limbo. If people realised the level of uncertainty all this would bring, the majority would have voted to stay.

              I watched a Documentary on Russia last night. Simon Reeve presented it...he's traveling the length of the country, this episode was partly in the Crimea where although the majority are ethnic Russian they realise now the error they made in supporting the Russian occupation, their way of life has been sent backwards 20 years and they have a water shortage because the water comes from the Ukraine and the Ukrainians have turned the tap off....

              I voted out to give those arrogant basterds in the EU a lesson in democracy....its fallen on deaf ears so far....I certainly didn't vote for paralysis!

              A good part of this unrest comes from 2008. People want another way out of the mess we're still in...
              Last edited by Toby; 17 Oct 17,, 20:15.

              Comment


              • Originally posted by zara View Post
                Rant over, rioja is very cheap here!
                I know ...bugger all tax on it ..good init. Foods good n'all

                Comment


                • Originally posted by Toby View Post
                  Hes just giving vent to the frustration that everybody feels at the moment.We're in limbo. If people realised the level of uncertainty all this would bring, the majority would have voted to stay.

                  I watched a Documentary on Russia last night. Simon Reeve presented it...he's traveling the length of the country, this episode was partly in the Crimea where although the majority are ethnic Russian they realise now the error they made in supporting the Russian occupation, their way of life has been sent backwards 20 years and they have a water shortage because the water comes from the Ukraine and the Ukrainians have turned the tap off....

                  I voted out to give those arrogant basterds in the EU a lesson in democracy....its fallen on deaf ears so far....I certainly didn't vote for paralysis!

                  A good part of this unrest comes from 2008. People want another way out of the mess we're still in...

                  I welcome you back to reality - forgive me. What would you propose as a solution - other than reform of the EU but for Britain?

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by snapper View Post
                    I welcome you back to reality - forgive me.
                    I never left - don't mention it.

                    What would you propose as a solution - other than reform of the EU but for Britain?
                    Freedom of movement has to reformed. Individual countries have to be able to control the flow..You can't expect a country to continually absorb millions of people when that country is effectively bankrupt

                    Comment


                    • I can think of many more reforms of the EU I would like to see myself - the European Court to rule on the EU breaking it's own rules for example offhand. On freedom of movement issues the UK would find allies in Central and Eastern Europe - not to mention Italy, Spain and Hellas due to the migrant/refugee problem and could probably win within the EU as a whole such a restriction of migration argument. Would that be sufficient for you to vote remain?

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by snapper View Post
                        I can think of many more reforms of the EU I would like to see myself - the European Court to rule on the EU breaking it's own rules for example offhand. On freedom of movement issues the UK would find allies in Central and Eastern Europe - not to mention Italy, Spain and Hellas due to the migrant/refugee problem and could probably win within the EU as a whole such a restriction of migration argument. Would that be sufficient for you to vote remain?
                        I wasn't looking at it from my own perspective. I was looking at it in general terms to pacify the majority that voted out. I personally see the benefits of immigration in growing the economy. But as with anything you can only take things so far before the elastic band snaps.
                        I don't have much faith in a political body that can't work that out for itself. Cameron tried to spell it out and got nowhere....
                        Last edited by Toby; 18 Oct 17,, 04:10.

                        Comment


                        • and after speaking with various European Business people this weekend, I realise..the current malaise is purely political ....nothing has changed for manufacturing companies...because they all still want to sell their product to the UK and vice versa....only the political class know strangely different!

                          Comment


                          • I guess its a judgement call really. Do the benefits of a sweet deal for the UK warrant the risk of a breakdown of the single market?

                            If a fudge is possible, perhaps. It's also in Europe's interest to draw this out as long as possible. The UK is bleeding jobs to the continent and I keep reading that come January many businesses will make their moves, and Banier, Juncker, schulz, Tusk and Merkel certaintly seem to be making pains not to weaken May any further.

                            To me it looks that Labour are edging towards a remain position.. the polls seem to tentatively point towards a desire for a second referendum. By the end of the transition period the country could be solidly remain, especially with demographics. Of course whether Europe (or the ECJ) would let us retract A50 is another matter, but its hardly inconcievable.
                            Last edited by zara; 23 Oct 17,, 22:43.

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by zara View Post
                              The UK is bleeding jobs to the continent
                              and yet employment is at its highest in 40 years...

                              Comment


                              • Thus far nobody has asked me again if I want a free trade agreement with other European nations........

                                Comment

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