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Rahman Dahlan slams Dr M for China deal 'muddle'

BN strategic communication director Abdul Rahman Dahlan has slammed former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad for his inability to understand the recent trade deals between Malaysia and China.

Describing it as "either deliberate or due to a lack of understanding of the details", Rahman said Dr Mahathir's blog post dated Nov 16, 2016, titled 'Najib's China Trip' was filled with numerous errors and misconceptions.

"MCA president Liow Tiong Lai was not trying to make Najib's dealings with China a racial issue. He was pointing out to the unfair criticism of the historic RM143 billion worth of trade and investment deals that Malaysia had signed with our largest trading partner and investor," Rahman said in a statement issued in Kuala Lumpur last night.

The minister in the Prime Minister's Department (photo) further said that China's delegates who had visited the recent MCA annual assembly had also expressed regret and unhappiness with the opposition over the unfair criticism of the two nations' trading and investment deals.

"The crux of Dr Mahathir's criticism seems to centre on the soft loan that Malaysia will take on to build the East Coast Railway project which he said would increase the Malaysia government's debts considerably, and that the main contractor would be a Chinese company.

"Although the main contractor will be China's largest construction company, our agreement is that a significant portion of this work will be sub-contracted to local companies and there will also be a transfer of technology," Rahman said, adding that this project would involve local contractors, unlike the construction of the KLCC.

The architect who designed the twin towers was an Argentinean while Tower 1 was contracted to the South Koreans while a Japanese company built Tower 2.

'Soft loan on very favourable terms'

Rahman also said the soft loan given by the Export-Import Bank of China was on very favourable terms with a low interest rate, and had a 20-year tenure, adding that it was also denominated in ringgit Malaysia and not in the US dollar or yuan, as alleged by Dr Mahathir.

"This makes Dr Mahathir's argument of foreign exchange risk a moot point," he added.

He further noted that the former prime minister's partnership with the opposition had led him to using lies and scare tactics to repeatedly undermine the confidence of all Malaysians and allege that Malaysia was on the path of bankruptcy.

"Since the founding of Malaysia, the opposition led by the DAP had continuously claimed that Malaysia will soon go bankrupt.

"Those who lived in the 1960s onwards, can attest to this. Yet, despite more than 50 years of these bankrupt allegations, Malaysia continues to grow from strength to strength.

"Currently, all three major international credit rating agencies give Malaysia an 'A' credit rating, which signifies investment grade.

"Our gross domestic product (GDP) growth recently recovered in the third quarter to 4.3 percent; we are now in our 227th consecutive month of trade surplus; we have a current account surplus and our foreign exchange reserves hold steady at US$97 billion," he said.

Rahman also said there will be no foreign exchange risks from the Chinese reminbi-ringgit soft loan facility for the East Coast Railway Link (ECRL) as it will use a fixed exchange rate

"There will be no exchange rate exposure risks for us, as at the point of the first draw-down, the reminbi-ringgit exchange rate for loan repayment purposes will be fixed for the remainder of its duration.

"This fixed rate will also apply for future draw-downs and repayment of the reminbi denominated portion of the loan," he said in a statement.

Rahman also explained that this had the effect of denominating all loan repayments in ringgit terms at a fixed reminbi-ringgit exchange rate, which eliminated the risk of exchange rate fluctuations.

- Bernama

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