Bismillahirrahmanirrahim..
We chose the topic on social and
economic development in Malaysia because through this topic, we can get to know
on how society change and the progress of their development. This study is very
core of sociology. The processes of development and social change are evident
features of social reality. Any attempts
to understand society is impossible without a deeper understanding of the
different issues related to these two significant phenomena. From this study
also, we got to know the transformation of the society which is from the
traditional to modern and the rise of the urban, industrial and capitalist order.
According to C.L. Harper, it is impossible to live in this world today without
being bombarded with the reality and pervasiveness of change. Means that, every
society and nation will having the changes in their life and this process will
be affected them in many ways without their conscience and realize or not about
it. In everyday life we make judgements about what is significant and what is
trivial, but people with different outlooks may have different views on what is
significant or what is trivial. So, in this assignment, we will discuss briefly
about social and economic background of Malaysia, the indicator of social and
economic, the structural economy of Malaysian society, barriers of development
in economy and social of Malaysia, measures of economic and society, a little
bit information about gold and silver and lastly about on how development progress
benefit to us.
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC BACKGROUND OF
MALAYSIA
According
to U.S Department of State, in 2010, Malaysia had a population of 28.3 million
people and the annual population growth rate is 1.7 percent. Malay is the
highest numbers of ethnic groups with 53.3 percent followed by Chinese with
26.0 percent then indigenous with 11.8 percent and then followed by Indian with
7.7 percent and then others with 1.2 percent.
Malaysia's multi-racial society contains many ethnic
groups. Malays comprise a majority of just over 50 percent. By constitutional
definition, all Malays are Muslim. About a quarter of the population is ethnic
Chinese, a group which historically played an important role in trade and
business. Malaysians of Indian descent comprise about 7 percent of the
population and include Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, and Christians. Non-Malay
indigenous groups combine to make up approximately 11percent of the population.
Nominal GDP of Malaysia in 2010 is about $255.3 billion with
annual real GDP growth rate 5.9 percent in 2006; 6.3 percent in 2007; 4.6
percent in 2008; -1.7 percent in 2009; 7.2 percent in 2010 and 5 percent – 6
percent according to Malaysian Government estimates in 2011. Then the nominal
per capita income (GNI) is about $8,126. The natural resources in Malaysia are
petroleum, liquefied natural gas (LNG) tin, and minerals. Besides that,
Malaysia has the agricultural products which are palm oil, rubber, timber,
cocoa, rice, tropical fruit, fish and coconut. The economic background of
Malaysia also include the industry with many types of practises such as
electronic, electrical products, chemicals, food and beverages, metal and
machine products and apparel. Then the trade of this country also took place in
merchandise exports and merchandise import with $210.3 billion of exports and
$174.1 billion of imports to major markets and major suppliers likes Singapore,
China, Japan, U.S and Thailand.
In
2007, the economy of Malaysia was the 3rd largest economy in South East Asia and 28th largest economy in the world by purchasing
power parity with gross
domestic product for 2008 of $222 billion with a growth rate of 5 percent to 7
percent since 2007.The currency of Malaysia is the Ringgit (MYR) (M$, or RM). The Malaysian
Ringgit has been pegged to the US dollar at the rate of MYR3.80:USD1 since
September 1998, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INDICATOR
With a conventional measurement approach, countries were ranked in terms
of their economic indicators. However, this approach does not take account the
non-priced subsistence production and income distribution considerations. To
remedy these defects, efforts were being made to create the composite
indicators that show the realization of human potential and capabilities. As a
result, social indicators were chosen as alternative measures of development
(Todaro, 1997:62)
In short, economic indicators assess
how economically developed a country is, while social indicators assess how
well a country is developing in key areas such as health, education and life
expectancy. Examples of economic indicators include GNP, real GDP, consumer
prices, export volume, terms of trade, current account, debt, foreign direct
investment (FDI), and investment ratios in percent of GDP and so on. Examples
of social indicators include adult literacy rate, under-five mortality rate,
percentages of population using drinking water and sanitation facilities,
primary and secondary school enrolment and so on.
The first indicator of economic in Malaysia
is through economic performance. These we can see based on GDP per capita. Then
the second indicator is through inflation. The tight labour market, budget deficits arising from
increased infrastructure and military expenditures. Asharp rise in public
sector wages exerts pressures on inflation. As a result, the economic risks and
social disruption associated with fluctuating inflation rates is significantly
increased. (Glesakos, 1984).Malaysia had a rapid structural change during
the two decades of 1970-1990. One focus of the plan-moving up the value-added
ladder of industry and services- is well articulated.
Next, is based on
external trade. The industry structure patterns
can be reflected in external trade. Malaysia has a rapid growth of industrializing
economy figured by high exports of manufacturing products and imports of
primary products. This country exports
also are dominated by machinery, mechanical appliances and electrical
equipment.
Besides that, foreign investment also can be as indicator of
economy. Due to macroeconomic
instability, high inflation rates, political problems and economic sanctions,
foreign investment in Malaysia is relatively strong economic growth, availability of manpower
and good physical infrastructure and attractive incentive packages. Then
through international reserves & external indebtedness (millions of US$) it
also can be used to indicate economy of a country.
For social
indicator, we can trace it through demographic, health, education and human
development index (HDI) ranking. For example, we can take account that the
population growth rate as a social indicator to define the demographic patterns
through mortality rates and life expectancy at birth. Then, drinking water sources and
sanitation facilities also are the significant indicators to determine the
levels of development in terms of health besides the immunization programs for the one-year old children.
As a next-tier newly industrializing country, health care system and government
facilities are better in Malaysia.
Next, adult literacy rates
and the number of the children enrolled in primary and secondary school can be guideline in one
country to determine the levels of development interms of education. Then,
through human development index (HDI) ranking, the scores were calculated based
on three basic dimensions of human development such as a long and healthy life,
knowledge and a decent standard of living.
.
ECONOMIC STRUCTURE OF MALAYSIA
In order to develop countries, there are some
components that to portray the structural diversity. The first structural
economy of Malaysia is based on the size of the country. The physical size of
the country and the size of its population are important to determine the
country’s economic performance. As endogenous growth theory associated market
scale with the emergence and application of innovation, the scale of the economy
has become a prominent factor to explain technological progress and size became
important when increasing returns to scale. If countries are only imperfectly
integrated with world markets, country’s size may be matter. (Saldanha&
Tavares, 2001:276) Malaysia is situated in Asia Pacific Region and the
sheer physical size of the country is 127,355 square miles residing 28.3
million peoples. In general, Malaysia is more integrated with the world economy
than others nearby countries likes Burma, Indonesia and Thailand. Malaysia has
a free market economy since independence in 1957.
Then, through
historical and colonial background of the country also, it was contributed to
the political, economic and institutional structures of the economy. Actually, the laws and institutions
inherited from colonial powers were often designed to exploit ethnic,religion
and ideological differences leading to civil wars, conflicts and turmoil
(McCoy, 2001). As we know, Malaysia has British colonial legacies and
experienced ethnic and religious conflicts during the post-colonial period.
Federation of Malaysia gained independence in 1957 and Malaysia was founded in
1963.
Besides that, ethnicity and religion
play an important role to portray the structure of the economies and development
efforts because ethnic and religious diversities often lead to conflicts,
violations and even civil wars. Even there is no physical conflict; researchers
claimed that indigenous people have lagged behind other groups in measuring
economic and social progress. Being indigenous makes it more likely that an
individual will be less educated, in poorer health, and in a lower
socioeconomic stratum. (Lee, 1993)
However, ethnic and
religious diversity does not lead to inequality or instability if there is a
successful economic and social integration effort in diverse society. Malaysia
is a good instrumental case. Among the 28 millions of population, 51 percent of
the population is Malay, all of whom are Muslims. Chinese make up 26 percent of
the population, most of whom are Buddhists combining Taoist and Confucian
practices, while a small number identify as Christian. Indians comprise 7
percent of the population of which most are Hindu with a small minority of
Sikhs, Muslims and Christians. Various ethnic groups, such as different
indigenous groups mostly situated in the Borneo region, and Eurasians and
migrants workers, most of whom are Indonesians, make up the remaining 14
percent of the population. (Peletz, 2005). The New Economic Policy (NEP) in
1969 aimed to accelerate the process of restructuring Malaysian society to
correct economic imbalance, so as to reduce and eventually eliminate the
identification of race with economic function. (Government ofMalaysia, 1971)
Certainly, Malaysia took unprecedented steps to overcome the ethnic
inequalities and improve the welfare of Malaysians.
The degrees of ownership in public and
private sectors also play an important role for economic development.
Public-sector activities and state-owned enterprises have led to widespread
economic failures in most low income countries. As a result, a centrepiece of
reform efforts during the 1980s was to privatize the public-sector enterprises.
(Mier, 1995).Within the private sectors itself, the degree of foreign ownership
also play as an indicator to determine the economic performance of the country
because it can create more economic opportunities in developing countries. For
Malaysia, it has implemented many different private sector participation models
under its Privatization Master Plan.
Next, the level of economic development is largely
influenced by the degree of interdependence among the industrial structures.
Three main types of industrial structures include primary sector (agriculture,
forestry and fishing); secondary sector (manufacturing) and tertiary structure
(commerce, finance, transport and services). In fact, low income countries
depend heavily on industrial imports and have primary sector industrial
structure. (Syrquin, 1988).The rapid structural change during the two decades
of 1980s and 1990s has transformed Malaysia from a primary producing country to
a next-tier newly industrialising economy.
Then, the development level of the
economy is also affected by its degree of dependence to foreign nations in
terms of politics, economics and culture. Dependency theory claimed that
developing countries are locked into stagnations positions as suppliers of
primary products for the core economies. (Dicken,1986). However, external
dependency is not only shaped by the economic situations but also the political
and cultural aspects. In the case of Malaysia, it underwent a rapid structural
change of the economy from primaryproducers to secondary producers during the
1970s and 1980s. As a result, it has become one of the industrialized economies
in the region during 1990s. Today, its industrialization process highly depends
on imported capital and intermediate products. The inflows of foreign direct
investment also play a significant role and due to political and macroeconomic
stability, foreign investment rapidly increased after 1989.
Gold
and silver market- The progress and the advantages of its investment to society
and economic of Malaysia.
“Bank Negara has been asked to do a
study on enacting a new law to govern trading in the gold and silver markets,
said Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Donald Lim Siang Chai”
This is a quotation from the
article on (date) that tells about
the progress on Dinar and the government seems to realise about this matter.
Meanwhile, in that news conference, one of the companies in Malaysia said that
they had created a websites which specially designed for their customers who
were interested to pursue investment opportunities.
I am highlighting the gold silver
market and their progress because I see the advantages of its investment to the
society and government. The advantages from the investment later will help the
country to be developed.
Last few weeks, in IIUM, there
are a dialogue on Gold Dinar. One of the panels is Professor Dr.AhamedKameel.
Interest change, fiat money, fractional reserve banking in government’s money
system right now lead to downgrade of the economy not just in Malaysia but also
in global.
It is different story with Dinar,
instead of making changes in the interest and decrease the value, Dinar’s value
will always increase from day to day because gold is one of the limited
resources. This shows the advantages of
Dinar, and why Dinar is worth to be invested on.
“ALLAH SWT, created gold and silver as a
measure of value”. Al-Ghazali
DEVELOPMENTBARRIERS IN SOCIAL
ECONOMIC OF MALAYSIA
There
are so many barriers in development of our social economic. The barriers are
not only coming from society but also it is connected with the government. As
the power holder, government plays their roles in order to develop not only the
economic but also the society. Policies or their plans really give a big impact
to the society. In this report, we would like to focus more on the barriers
made by society or we called it as social problems. Illiteracy, poverty,
homeless and other social illnesses are the examples of the social structure
and those are the basic unit of analysis on how others read the society. If the
community is well educated and having a very good healthy lifestyle there are
big possibility for a country to develop as successful and transform to be a
modern country.
In Malaysia, if
we look at the statistic reported by the government, there are not really
higher compare to other country it is about 3.6%, but still due to the new
policy like age for pension in government were increase up to 60 years old,
vacancies for the fresh graduate in getting job is lower. It shows the
percentage about the need of government to solve and work harder to achieve
their plan to make Malaysia as one of the modern country. This statistics also
give us a picture about how another community faces their daily life in a very
hard way while other community enjoy and ignoring their neighbours. As a
student that learnt about the community and society as a whole, we as a student
maybe can contribute to help government with a report like this.
It is well written that the effective way for
individual’s like laypeople, researchers, social scientists, lawmakers and
alike to learn the society or to perceive social problems is to see the problem
from an individualistic perspective. For example, they will blame the
individual because they see the problem happen because of that person weakness,
like they are poor because they are lazy; they are uneducated because they do
not have the opportunity to learn. The outsiders usually will blame the family
for not having a good financial or economy to support their children with no
reference to the misdistribution of wealth and other socially perpetuated
disadvantages. Another example is, in other country, if we want to compare, the
problem with African Americans and white Americans. They blame African Americans
for their aggressive behaviour without trying to understand the limits placed
on social mobility for African Americans by the social system. This type of
thinking, leads to disunited community and also brings more harm to the
society.
Ryan
(1976), wrote in his book about how to determine the fundamental issue in the
society based on two kinds of ‘blame’, whether it is person-blame or system-blame.
Person-blame is because of the pathologies of individuals. The definition of
pathology is about the knowledge of illness. Here means, the problems occurred
because of a person weakness, even there are a lot of chances for them to be
helped but because of their illness they fail to do it. While system-blame is
about the problems happened because of the deviants policies itself. But,
still, it is important to examine their reasoning.
To
make it clear about the system-blame approach let us see the example on how we
can use them to read the problem occurred. First, I would like to give example
about the standard of student capability in using other language instead of
their mother tongue’s languages or maybe the dialect. In
Malaysia, we have so many races and ethnics. Each of them has their own
dialect. When all of these races and ethnicity were being together they have to
use a same language to communicate. If the person was used with English, it is
not a problem for him/her. But just imagine, someone from the rural area comes
to the city and he/she also have a good result but when h/she come to another
community which needs h/she to speak English h/she instead of feeling weird of
speak another language, as a result they can’t do it better even sometime they
can do it. In this situation we call it as system-blame. It is because, the
school they entered before this did not teach them on how to deal with this
kind of society.
If we look at this
situation in another perspective, we will know the importance of each
institution in society like media, family, government to educate a person is
actually coming from each of them and how their roles help the country to be
developed.
HOW DEVELOPMENT PROGRESS BENEFIT US
Development progress can benefit to us
in many ways. For example, the establishment economic system of Islam can
bridge the gap between the rich and the poor. This is because through this
system, it has instituted several measures such as institution of zakah and
prohibition of usury that is interest or riba. This system also instituted the
rules of inheritance according to which the property of the deceased is distributed
among the legal heirs besides encourages the giving of charity. Then, in terms
of social development, this change involves the typical bases of relationships
between people. The dominant patterns of social relationships begin to shift
from those based on binding tradition to ones based on rational interest and
exchange. Relationship based on loyalty replaced by universal standards and
principal such as competency and citizenship. Thus, it gives benefit to us
because through this we can involve in a wide range of communication besides
has the large capacity to interact with others people. This progress also helps
us to solve the problem based on the basis of logic, data and planning rather
than traditional and superstition because this new relationship is rationalism.
So, basically through this development progress it is actually help the people,
community and country to have a better life than before.
CONCLUSION
Thus, in conclusion, economic and
social indicators of Malaysia shows that
economic development is not only based on the income levels but also dependent
on the human aspirations, conflicts and peace, political structure and
religious composition as well as the political and civil rights of human beings
that increase the capabilities and knowledge societies. From the research about
this topic also, we found that social development is the vital part to be
developed before we start thinking about the development of economy. This is
because without the cooperation between the people, how come we can develop our
economic progress.
While doing this
project, we start searching the references and later we come out with what we
want to know and what we will be put in this project. Alhamdulillah, all
praises to Allah, we manage to do so. A lot of references like books, articles,
and also events in the campus that we had attend also help us to do this
project.
From this project,
we are able to know a bit about Malaysia, which is our own country. We found
that it is different with what we had in mind. As we mentioned, about the
statistics, about how Malaysia developed from time to time and how government
fix the problems. There are certain flaws, but it is normal in each country. As
for the government we found there are so many chances to help the growth of
economic like for example, the investment on gold Dinar.
In the middle of our progress to finish the
project, there are few problems happened and we have to do it again and this is
why we cannot submit our assignment just in time. We take these problems as
challenges that we can fight on. We also learnt that cooperation, good
relationship, and good communication among the group members are very important
to make work easier and also to gain almost good result. This is good things
that we should apply in teamwork.
Last but not least,
we would like to thank our lecturer, Dr. Abdul- Mumin for his understanding and
supporting us while doing the project. May Allah grant you with the best
reward.
“Allah does not
change whatever is in the society until or unless they change whatever is in
the themselves "(Ar-Rad:11)
REFERENCES
· Kendall,D .(1997). Sociology in our Times.(7th edition). USA : United
States Copyright Action.
· Abdulai, M. (2011) Theory of Development & Measures of Inequality and Development.
Malaysia: IIUM Gombak
· Eitzan,D.S, Zinn, M.B, Smith,K.E (2004). Social Problems. (12th
edition). Pearson/A and B: Pennsylvania State University
· Fatt, C.K (1997). Malaysian Taxation. Malaysia: Infoworld
·
Event in IIUM, 24th November 2011,main auditorium in
IIUM. Topic:Dialogue on Gold Dinar: reality versus
fantasy.Panelist:ProfDr.AhamedKameelMydinMeera (Head Department of Finance,
Kuliyyah of Economics and Management Sciences in IIUM) & Prof. ZubairHasan
(Prof. of Islamic Economic and Finance –INCIEF)
· . http://www.tradechakra.com/economy/malaysia/natural-resources-in-malaysia-199.php. retrieved on 2011 November 18
· . http://www.tradechakra.com/economy/malaysia/human-resource-in-malaysia-155.php. retrieved on 2011 November 20
Essay on
different forms of Industrialization
R.K
Tripathy
Industrialization takes many forms and develops at different stages
through time. However, with the mention of industry, people tend to conjure up
classic images such as textile mills, shipbuilding or heavy engineering. These
were definitely the first areas to be industrialized. With time, the word
industry in general, now encompasses many newer areas.
Broadly, industries can be of the following types depending on the raw
material used and products made. They are:
1.
Manufacturing Industries: Industries which produce goods by utilizing or
processing raw materials, semi-processed materials, by-products or waste
products or any other goods.
2.
Energy-Based Industries: Industries generating energy from water resources,
wind, solar, coal, natural oil, gas, bio-gas or any other sources.
3. Agro and
Forest-Based Industries: Business mainly based on agriculture or forest
products such as integrated sericulture and silk production, horticulture and
fruit processing, animal husbandry, dairy industry, poultry farming, fishery,
tea gardening and processing, coffee farming and processing, horticulture and
herb processing, vegetable seed farming, mushroom, vegetable farming or
vegetable processing, tissue culture, green house, beekeeping, honey
production, rubber farming, floriculture and production, and forestry related
businesses such as leasehold forests, agro-forestry, etc.
4. Mineral
Industries: Industries that excavate or process minerals.
5. Tourism
Industries: Tourist lodging, motel, hotel, restaurant, resort, travel agency,
skiing, gliding, water rafting, cable car complex, pony-trekking, trekking, hot
air ballooning, para-sailing, golf-course, polo, horse-riding, etc.
6. Service
Industries: Workshop, printing press, consultancy service, ginning and baling
business, cinematography, construction business, public transportation
business, photography, hospital, nursing home, educational and training
institution, laboratory, air services, cold storage, etc.
7.
Construction Industries: Road, bridge, ropeway, railway, trolley bus, tunnel,
flying bridge and industrial, commercial and residential complex construction
and operation.
While establishing an industry, its optimum size is of utmost importance
to reap the maximum benefits. One of the main advantages of an industry is
employment generation. Depending on the size of the industry, capital input,
employment generated, technology source, sophistication of technology involved,
skill involvement etc. industries are classified.
The classification of an industry into types is decided for a country by
its government. Different set of rules, permit rules, policies, tax structure,
etc. prevail for each category.
On the basis of the capital investment, industry is classified into:
- Cottage
Industries
- Small
Scale Industries
- Large
Scale Industries
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