The government appears to hold the view that Malaysia should consider it necessary to review the ringgit peg only if the trade weighted average value of the ringgit against the currencies of its major trading partners fluctuates more than 20 percent and the peg misaligned by more than10 precent from its equilibrium value.

Sustainable current account balance is attained, at least in theory by balancing imports and exports through domestic pricing mechanism and a realistic exchange rate regime that takes into account the positions of our trading partners and major competitors.

The ringgit should therefore be a fair reflection of Malaysia's comparative advantage over that of other countries. To value the ringgit lower than this level for a prolonged period would imply that we are giving undue advantage to our exporters and hence insulating them from the reality of the competitive environment in the global market. This certainly is not in the best interest of our country even in the mid-term as our exporters will not be encouraged to upgrade their skill and efficiency.

At the same time, it will not help encourage a speedy transformation of our economic structures and the allocation of national resources towards creating our own sustainable niche in the global economy as the pricing mechanism become distorted. This would make our economy vulnerable even in the mid-term.

I certainly appreciate the move taken by our government in pegging the ringgit at 3.80 to the US dollar when we were hit by the economic crisis. As they say when the devil is at the corridor, you have to close it quickly and securely. When it is no more there, you should open the door carefully and progressively so that you can be with the rest of the world community and benefit through normal business interactions.

Knowing that the world is never the same again after the 1997 crisis and recognising that even the United States is not consistent in complying to World Trade Organisation terms and requirements for a free global trade regime, we need not necessarily have to be a comformist. Just continue to do what is best for our country but make sure that we do not take too much comfort in short-term gain at the cost of long-term interest and survival.

A managed float is certainly better than a pure float that expose our economic survival to the vagaries of market forces. Adam Smith's invisible hands that is suppose to restore market equilibrium in ensuring the survival of the fittest, more often than not happen to be the hands of the opportunistic market manipulators such as that of the hedge fund managers and at other times it turn out to be the hands of the jealously protective US president himself, as demonstrated last year in protecting their steel industry and agriculture products.

Even the champion of liberal democracy and the free market economy have to accept that they live on food, rise to power and affluence based on knowledge and skill, but survive on politics.

A period of low exchange rate could indeed be used as an instrument for a major global market penetration strategy for Malaysian exports, especially manufactured products. It helps to penetrate new markets and built-up scale within a short period of time thereby sustaining competitiveness. In fact, the reason why Korea has taken such a great stride in its exports in recent years, and is now by far the world's biggest exporter of LCDs and that the export of their cars had significantly increase following the Asian economic crisis is not due to upgrades in technology alone.

A very important part of that is attributable to the cheap Korean won as against the Japanese yen. The Koreans took the opportunity to utilise their internal excess capacities to upgrade technology and built-up scale and momentum in the export sector.

China has become a foreign direct investment (FDI) black-hole not only due to its huge domestic market but also because of their cheap currency and these factors have more than mitigate business risks such as having a bureaucratic and erratic business environment coupled with unproven enforceability of private contracts.

We must reconsider now that we are already out of the woods and the economic crisis is over. Everybody should be out there in full steam. We should therefore cautiously move out of the protective framework constructed to survive the economic crisis of 1997.

In the final analysis what is required by the Malaysian economy and the businessman at large is the same. A stable and realistically valued Malaysian ringgit. And of course it is us, our own experts that should manage our foreign exchange rates and not be left to the wilderness of the market place.