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Old 04-19-2012, 02:55 AM   #37
dodsCooggipsedebt

Join Date
Oct 2005
Posts
461
Senior Member
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There are still many areas that need to be developed and refined further. Malaysia still is far from being an ideal Muslim country. We are still learning from the brothers and sisters from other Islamic countries and there are much much more room of improvement can be done.

Hope some of the information I provide here can be helpful. Also it helps to get information from others as well.
Before settling in any Muslim country , one should check the following issues
1. Corruption in government offices This can be divided into two levels; a)at the policymakers level, b)at the implementation level.
a) Nepotism still is a big problem in Malaysia. Some of them operate as an insider trader, using inside information to gain some advantage over other parties.
- Awareness on accountability is high on Malaysia, however there's still no protection for whistle blowers. A new set of laws are about to be tabled that will include necessary protections for whistle blowers. Also there's a plan with the draft of the amendment has already been made public to abolish a colonial Internal Security Act which allows for indefinite detention of a person under pretext of national security. The same law is actually used by the Singaporean government to silence the opposition figures and as far as I know, there's no plan in Singapore to abolish the same colonial law.
- The top people are still corrupt, however the check and balance factors are more transparent now compared to just 10 years ago. Nowadays some of the worst corruptions together with some documents are often leaked out to the public using anonymous blogs. It has huge impact politically, however the task to prosecute the perpetrators are still very challenging because of the stringent evidence accaptance level used in the court of law. A few of the big cases are already on trial.

b) Corruptions among officers in various departments.
- Corruption standard in Malaysia has improved a lot after the Anti Corruption Department is made into its own agency and has their own prosecution teams. Anti Corruption Agency officers are active in surveillance, evidence gathering and so forth by planting informants, and sometimes their own officers are active as undercover agents within various government departments. The corruption rate has gone down tremendeously compared to some eight years ago. Now the campaigns are widened to include not just the public sectors, but the private sectors as well. Basically the Malaysian's Anti Corruption Agency learnt a lot from Hong Kong anti corruption agency, which is among the top 3 rated in the world.

2.Attitude of locals to the foreigners -- How pervasive is Racism and nepotism ? Is meritocracy promoted ? - I've already touched a bit about nepotism. About meritocracy, the competitiveness is being upgraded and some of the more important and lucrative sectors are slowly being liberalized. A pool of semi skilled workers are not hard to find in Malaysia, however the competitiveness in a true liberalized economy is depending on the professionals and skilled workers. For that, plans are underway to produce more professionals and skilled workers in several targeted sectors.

3.Communication and power infra-structure - Communication shouldn't be a problem. The biggest telco company in South East Asia is actually located in Malaysia. Also for communication purposes, English is the second language used by many Malaysians.

4. Attitude of locals to the visible sign of religiosity- hijab , niqab ,beard and sunnah dress etc - Majority of Muslims in Malaysia follow Shafi'ie fiqh. The environment in big cities are not free from the western cultures, but if you go just outside the cities, then you'll see a much more Islamic environment (hijab, beard, etc). The Islamic environments are much more prevalents in the state of Kelantan, Trengganu and Kedah. Actually, the Head Minister of Kelantan himself is a qualified 'alim that teaches many subjects in fiqh and aqeedah at a mosque next to his house mainly on Fridays and Saturdays.

5. Healthcare infra-structure - Healthcare services are still not up to the standard like in the West, however it's not too shabby either. Some of the most advanced research in cancer, specifically throat cancer is done in Malaysia. Every major city has a few big hospitals. Clinics are built in the rural areas.

6.job opportunity
7. investment or business-friendly environment - Job opportunities are available mostly to professionals. But personally I think the chances to do business is greater than to find a job in Malaysia, especially in international tradings. Bank facilities to secure the import export financing are quite robust. I guess that happens because Malaysia is a hub country where international cargos are often transited.

- Also I would suggest to do business that's directly related to the mass market (supply/demand) rather than try to get some contracts from the government related projects. That way you're free from political influence and since you're dealing directly with the mass market, it's entirely up to you on how to develop your business plan and execution. A few of the successful brothers who are istiqamah in da'wah are also doing their business that way.

8. educational infrastructure - Educational infrastructures are quite robust. The only problem I see is how to further nurture the research or experiment culture among the students.

9. General law and order - Law and order are generally good. Police has some SOP regarding their response time and so on.

How good is Malaysia in all the above sectors ?

From my professional perspective , Malaysia is good in electronics and high tech field.

Out of all the countries in South Asia and South East Asia, I think, only Malaysia seems to be an emerging tiger. The rest are just sinking ships.
Pakistan is almost broken , Afganistan is at the bottom of the ocean and Bangladesh is very corrupt. - Malaysia now is in the transition from being an electronic commodity manufacturer to the more value added content developer in almost all areas in information technology and service related industries (education, health system, etc). I think Malaysians are just started to get into the second phase of the process.

- Like I mentioned earlier, Malaysia still has a long way to go before can be said as an ideal Islamic country. But one step at a time, as long as the niyat is only for the sake of Allah and istiqamah in doing so, we'll try our best to achieve that.

Allah Knows best.
dodsCooggipsedebt is offline


 

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