International Trade and Industry Minister Mustapa Mohamed today took a swipe at Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim (PKR-Permatang Pauh), accusing him of being selective in using data to put the government in a bad light.

He said while the government has admitted that the country had declined in its global competitiveness, the picture was not as bad as the opposition leader painted.

NONE "Permatang Pauh is selective in sourcing information from reports. He did not mention the IMD World Competitive Yearbook, which measures government efficiency and business competitiveness," Mustapa ( right ) said during question time.

In this year's IMD ranking, Malaysia leaped forward 10 places to rank ninth among 58 nations studied.

Mustapa went on to say that Anwar used outdated information when citing the Bank of America Merrill Lynch report last month, which put Malaysia as the "least favoured market" by investors among 12 Asia Pacific nations.

The minister said that Malaysia had since enjoyed improvements in its ranking by Merrill Lynch in following reports.

"The government does not deny that we need to improve, and that is why we are implementing the government transformation programme (GTP) and the economic transformation programme (ETP)," he said.

Investor confidence returning

Mustapa added that investor confidence in Malaysia was returning, as proven by last week's deal between Abu Dhabi's Mubadala Development Co and 1Malaysia Development Bhd in the RM26 billion Kuala Lumpur International Financial District and a RM21.7 billion commitment in the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (Score).

Anwar, in his supplementary question, pointed out that regardless of whether or not his data was outdated, the reality was that the country was lagging behind its neighbours due to a lack of transparency and institutional weaknesses.

new istana negara 211106 artist painting He stressed that projects such as the new RM800 million Istana Negara ( left ) and the mass rail transit (MRT) joint-proposal by Gamuda Bhd and MMC Corp Bhd only reinforced the negative perceptions against the government and country.

Mustapa however swatted aside Anwar's supplementary question, saying the opposition chief was raising issues that were not relevant.

"The issue here is that the government has started improving on the country's competitiveness and strengthening our institutions, but the opposition has yet to do so," he said.