I received my regular copy of Harakah more than a week ago. In the Fikrah Harakah section, there is an interview with Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim, former CEO of Perbadanan Nasional Berhad and Treasurer-General of Parti Keadilan Rakyat. The interview gives a good insight into the thinking of one of the country’s prominent businessman. He is well-versed on economic issues, talking confidently about the state national and international economy. His comments on our PM’s performance are intriguing.
When asked: “UMNO cadang untuk wujudkan GLC dalam sektor pertanian, apa komen Tan Sri?”, he answered:
“Itu kena kaji. Saya sudah buat kajian sebagai KetuaPegawai Eksekutif (CEO) Guthrie dahulu saya cuba kaji sama ada bolehkah Guthrie memasuki sektor pertanian selain kelapa sawit. Kita kena faham persaingan antara petani kecil dan korporat amat berbeza. Walaupun Guthrie boleh sediakan 1,000 ekar ladang durian tetapi hasilnya nanti apabila durian itu menjadi memanglah hasilnya akan berlipat kali ganda, tetapi ia akan membuatkan harga pasaran rendah dan ia akan mematikan petani kecil yang kebanyakan bergantung harap kepada pasaran durian yang ada pada harga yang akan memberi faedah kepada mereka. Oleh itu cadangan perlulah dikaji kerana (jika salah) strategi, penglibatan syarikat besar dalam sektor pertanian hanya akan mematikan petani kecil. Kalau nak buat sekalipun strategi perlu diubah suai dengan sebaik mungkin.”
Tan Sri Abdul Khalid accepts that mass production of a product will result in an abundance of supply, which in turn will drive down prices.
But, he seems to imply that it is better to not mass-produce so that prices are kept artificially high. In order to keep an inefficient group of producers in work, he would rather punish the vast majority of people – i.e. us – by forcing us to pay artificially higher prices for that good.
To use the Tan Sri Abdul Khalid’s example, would it not be much better if the durian farming industry is opened up so that the durian can be mass-produced and therefore more people can afford to buy them? The farmers would profit from the increased sales volume, and not be dependent on profiteering from limited and inefficient production.
If we continue to subsidise – either directly through government financing or indirectly through maintenance of artificially high prices – inefficient method of productions, we would suffer in the long run as we as a nation become increasingly uncompetitive.
Filed under: Malaysia
mass production means that we need to be more competitive. i guess the issue is what would happens if the productin exceeds the local market need. sure, we could send the product overseas but……dude it’s durian that we’re talking about. correct me if i’m wrong but i don’t think anyone else could dare eat them aside from south east asians. it’s even in the fear factor dare list….
it is just a classic case of special interest where the interest is of the farmers’. In this case, economic efficiency is thrown out of the window.
mrq: Mass production would lead to lower prices, which would lead innovators to innovate, helping to diversify usage potentials.
to certain degree,i agree with saiful,so mass producers must plan carefully to market the innovated durian products e.g durian fragrance,tapping global market la…let the small farmers deal with domestic.
Farmers have to be proactive. They should combine their resources (land, manpower, money and etc) and form big company to achieve economics of scale. This probably a win-win situation for them and also consumers. But i dont expect them to be as most of them from low social economic background and are ill informed about the dynamic changes occuring in the market. They need to be assisted, and pushed to merge as the government did to quite number of banks not a long time ago.