To me, the new currency for trading of oil will not materialize in the next 20 years (at the minimum) simply because America will still be the No. 1 economy in the world and largest trading partner for most countries (BRIC nations included) and will also continue to be he No 1 net importer of most goods produced in the world (raw, intermediate & capital). In addition, the trading relationship between the worlds' 1st and 2nd economies (America and Japan) is so closely interlinked that if ever that would be an alternative currency for world/oil trading then it should be the Japanese Yen. Euro will not be in the picture at all. Hence, USD will still be prevalent.
Malaysia is fortunate that our local FIs did not have the 'foresight' to invest into Middle Eastern bonds & other exotic financial instruments. Whilst I was in IB line, we were in fact trying to lure Middle Eastern cash to our shores instead of the other way around. Hence, our country is partly mitigated by the direct and high impact financial meltdown. SGP on the other hand was more adventurous in her quest to chase higher yields on its investment - hence had purchased and participated in many of the exotic financial instruments i.e. MBOs, CLOs, CitiGroup and most likely Dubairian bonds as well. It wouldn't surprise me at all that she would catch the cold again this time...for the second time.
On the downside, we are a net exporter nation (most intermediate goods are sold either to Euro or America), whilst China is MY's largest buyer of CPO. Hence, our manufacturers + factories are generally suffering from slowdown in world business. Whilst unfortunate, this is of course a normal business cycle and all business people would/should understand this and would/should have planned out its businesses to ride unforeseen storms.
CIMB's NPL arose mainly from its recent acquisition of CIMB Thai (ex-Lippo) which unsurprisingly would have carried lots of low credit assets. In assessing CIMB's financial health, it is important to read the full context of its BS/PL/CashFlow statements (
Bursa Malaysia : Listed Companies - Announcements). In fact, a 3% NPL ratio prior to the kitchen sinking exercise is quite the market level among local backs, and also considering that the group had actually aggressively acquired new assets (loans) during a supposedly economic downturn - some of which may have also inevitably included low credit assets too. When fully analyzed, the group's financial health is actually quite OK for our 2nd largest lender and bearing in mind RAM had also upgraded CIMB Group to AAA (from AA2).
As our BNM governor had mentioned at the onslaught of the financial crises earlier, our economy will have to learn how to depend less on export earnings, but the Malaysian economic recovery will HAVE to be domestically driven i.e. local consumption. Sounds very ambitious, considering that perhaps only 1/8 of our estimated 27 mil population has the financial capacity to spend comfortably. However, what is the alternative? In my books, there simply isn't an export market out there at the moment that can drive Malaysia out of the doldrums. So, without too much of an alternative we must thus do our individual parts, however small or big.
