World Bank recently published a new report regarding the easiest country to do business in the world for 2012.
The countries are ranked on their ease of doing business, from scale 1 – 183. A high ranking on the ease of doing business index means the regulatory environment is more conducive to start and operate a local firm.
These index averages the country’s percentile rankings on 9 topics, made up of a variety of indicators, giving equal weight to each topic.
Malaysia is at position 18th up to 3 positions from 21st in 2011. The top 3 countries namely Singapore, Hong Kong and New Zealand manage to retain its position as per 2011 rankings.
The table below is the rank of the top 30 countries.
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Most of the stock market in the world does not performing well in Q3 2011. When compare Q3 2010, only 13 out of 51 stock markets in the positive territory and Busa Malaysia was one of them.
In the same period, market capitalization for Bursa Malaysia increase by 1.10 percent if measured by Malaysian Ringgit but decrease 2.2 percent if the measurement made based on US Dollar. The decrease is due to strengthing of Malaysian Ringgit.
The top 2 world’s best-performing stock markets are Irish & Tehran stock exchanges. Both showed more than 40 percent increase. Meanwhile, the worst stock exchanges are Cyprus and Athens stock exchanges, which decrease more than 40 percent.
The table below is world stock exchange rank based on previous 1 year data.
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Previously, we looked at 2011 top 300 world’s largest pensions fund where Malaysian funds, namely Employees Provident Fund at position number 9. The different between sovereign and non-sovereign funds are the fund ownership.
Sovereign fund is established by national authorities for the meeting of pension liabilities. So, this raking is quite similar to world’s largest pension funds but without private funds such as General Motors pension funds.
EPF move 1 rank up from 6th spot in 2010 to 5th spot in 2011 with total assets grew from $109 billion to $146 billion. EPF even overtaking Singapore’s fund, Central Provident Fund
The table below shows top 26 world’s largest sovereign pension funds.
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Fraser Institute which is based in Canada recently releases “2011 Economic Freedom of the World Annual Report “. The ranking is based on 5 areas to measure the economic freedom for each country.
The areas are Size of Government (Expenditures, Taxes, and Enterprises), Legal Structure and Security of Property Rights, Access to Sound Money, Freedom to Trade Internationally and Regulation of Credit, Labor, and Business.
In 2011, Malaysia drop to 78th from 77th in 2010. The drop mainly contributed by big government’s involvement in the economy (GLCs). The ideal is more involvement from private sector. On the other hand, Malaysia score very well in Regulation of Credit, Labor, and Business. The 2011 reports are based on data compiled in 2009.
The table below is the 2011 Economic Freedom ranking.
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In 2010, Malaysia’s total external trade was at RM1.17 trillion up from RM988 billion in 2009. However, trade surplus was down to 110 billion Ringgit from RM118 billion a year before.
Malaysia largest trading partner is China with total trade of RM147 billion in 2010 up from RM127 billion in 2009.
In terms of trade surplus, Malaysia earns the most from Singapore with RM25 billion in surplus. On the other hand, Malaysia lost the most to Indonesia with a trade deficit of RM11 billion.
The table below is Malaysia top 30 largest trading partner with details export, import & trade surplus (or deficit) in 2010.
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