GDP & Demonstrations: A Case Of Wrong Correlation?

Sometimes I wonder who to trust. You hear some comments made with so much concerns and worries for the rakyat yet when the results came out, you realised most of the things highlighted before is to me, more of a bunch of bullshit bogeyman theory.

If you read the Edge online headline today, it was reported that 4th quarter of 2007 GDP grew by 7.3%! Apparently, according to Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM in short), this is the fastest quarterly growth since the 2nd quarter of 2004. This contributed to the full-year 2007 GDP growth of 6.3% , exceeding both the BNM target of 6% and overall market expectations (which basically means average of estimations made by economists, analysts and such) below 6%.

And how did this come about?

...on the back of robust domestic demand driven by strong private consumption spending and investment activities and increase in public sector spending...

So which sectors contribute to this fast growth rate?

On the supply side, the services and agriculture sectors were the main drivers for the economic growth, while for the demand side, the growth was underpinned by the double-digit growth of private final consumption and gross fixed capital formation.

...private consumption expenditure grew by 11.1% supported by high disposable income due to strong commodity prices, salary increment in the public sector and stable employment market.

Gross fixed capital formation increased by 11% in 4Q, due to increased capital spending by the private sector, as evidenced by higher loans approval and disbursement to the manufacturing and construction sectors and imports of capital goods, as well as higher disbursement for development expenditure.

On the supply side, growth was led by the services sector, which grew by 9.1%, followed by the agriculture sector at 6.9%, manufacturing 5.6%, construction 4.7% and mining 3.5%.

The expansion in the services sector was supported by double-digit growth in the wholesale and retail trade, accommodation and restaurant, and finance, insurance, real estate and business services sub-sectors.

Boring stuff aside, you must wonder, so what does all this mean? Remember back in November 2007, two significant events took place here in Malaysia. Forgotten? Well, let me remind you, 40K turned up for the BERSIH rally on the 10 November 2007 and Hindraf rally on 25 November 2007.


I remember clearly a number of BN politicians came out strongly to say these rallies are bad for the economy. I even blogged about it. However, to emphasis the point just in case any of us forget, Dr Lee Chong Meng, the current aspirant to be the MP for Bukit Bintang by legitimate means, has this to say (with like 400 NGOs) about the impact of these two rallies back when the Star reported it on 7 December 2007 on the economy:

“Not only have tour operators suffered losses, so too have hotels, shopping complexes and businesses,” he added.

Bukit Bintang MCA chief Senator Datuk Dr Lee Chong Meng said the two illegal street demonstrations by Bersih on Nov 10 and Hindraf on Nov 25 had damaged the country’s reputation and image in the world, especially in terms of tourism.

“Some tourists from South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, China and Singapore have cancelled their trips here,” he said, adding that million-ringgit efforts by the Government to promote tourism with events like Visit Malaysia Year had gone to waste because of the coverage on the demonstrations by the foreign media.

Hmm, I seriously wonder. Do these so called "experts in running the country" know what they are talking about? BNM reported the FASTEST quarterly growth since Q2 2004 (despite the anomaly of having two huge rallies during the same period) while these politicians said millions are wasted, businesses suffered losses, economy affected in a bad way, et cetera, et cetera.

No wonder Dr Lee said he can't debate on national issues. This must be one of his shortsightedness...:P

And do you still consider voting for them the so-called self proclaimed, look-at-our-track-record "experts" in running the country?