In preparing to embrace globalisation, Malaysia should make sure that foreign and local investors can trust it is as a "quality state" - run by a government with institutions and laws, according to an opposition leader.

"No country can succeed in globalisation with a rotten judiciary, a corrupt government, or lack of good institutions," DAP chairman Lim Kit Siang said in a statement today.

Lim said this is one of the three critical issues which must be addressed by the 2001 Budget, to be presented in Parliament on Friday.

The other two key issues that should be addressed, according to Lim, are the need to restore and enhance Malaysia's global competitiveness, and how to salvage Malaysia's international reputation with regard to corruption.

Lim was commenting on Finance Minister Daim Zainuddin's statement that the Budget would offer a "little" good news for the man in the street.

"The 2001 Budget should address the country's economic and national well-being, not only in the first decade of the millennium, but the future as well.

"For more than a month, the government has acted like an ostrich with its head in the sand with regard to the 2000 global competitiveness ranking by Swiss-based World Economic Forum showing a catastrophic collapse in Malaysia's international competitiveness rating, which has fallen nine places," said Lim.

Malaysia slipped to the 25th position from 16th in 1999. Malaysia was in the ninth place in 1997.

Lim said that with all the hype of the Multimedia Super Corridor, Malaysia should have fared better as the 2000 competitiveness rating attached significantly greater weight to technology than before as a key driver of sustained economic growth.

Corruption index freefall

In the Transparency International's 2000 Corruption Perception Index (CPI), Malaysia plunged from 32nd to the 36th position[#1] (Malaysia's corruption indicator rises[/#], Sept 14).

"This is continuing Malaysia's annual freefall in the international corruption ranking since its first introduction in 1995, except in one year," said Lim.

The only time there was an improvement in Malaysia's ranking in the CPI was in 1998 as compared with the previous year, which Lim attributed largely due to the anti-corruption campaign led by then deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim.

Lim also stated that it is sad that the issues such as deterioration of good governance and the discriminatory actions, such as the hijacking of the Terengganu state oil royalty by the Federal Government, have not been debated in Parliament yet.