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Friday, June 25, 2010

Europe to focus on growth

Geithner tells Europe to focus on growth

Timothy Geithner says the world "cannot depend as much on the US as it has in the past"

Europe must focus on growth as well as cutting spending to reduce national deficits, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has told the BBC.

Speaking in Washington ahead of G8 and G20 meetings this weekend in Toronto, Mr Geithner said that world leaders must concentrate on the "paramount" challenges of growth and confidence.

He added the world could not rely as much on the US as it has in the past.

The European Union says securing growth "remains a priority".

The Group of Eight and Group of 20 rich and developing nations are assembling on Friday for three days of talks on how best to emerge from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

But the Reuters news agency reported that world leaders at the meeting would admit that sickly public finances could hurt long-term growth.

'Hand in hand'
Many European governments, including the UK, have implemented severe austerity measures in recent weeks in order to cut debt levels.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron arrives in Toronto 
In pictures: G8/G20 leaders arrive Cameron urges focus at G8 summit
 
UK Prime Minister David Cameron, who has arrived in Canada along with other leaders, said in an article for the Globe and Mail newspaper: "No-one can doubt the biggest promise we have to deliver: fixing the global economy."

"I believe we must each start by setting out plans for getting our national finances under control," he added.
Herman van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, said that the EU's key words this weekend would be "growth, confidence and medium term".

"The restoring of confidence in budgetary policies go hand in hand with effective growth strategies," he said ahead of the meetings.

Growth challenge
  When asked if Europe faced the possibility of Japanese-style stagnation if it carries on with debt reduction policies, Mr Geithner said "Europe has the capacity to prevent that".
G8 Map  
G8/G20 summits security map
 
But he added: "Europe can make a choice to put in place the reforms and policies that will provide the possibility of stronger growth rates in the future.

"This meeting gives us the chance to sit together and look at whether we've got a broad strategy across the country that's going to strengthen this recovery."

"Our job is to make sure we're all sitting there together to focus on this challenge of growth and confidence because growth and confidence are paramount."

Some commentators in Europe argue that austerity measures should only be introduced once strong growth has been secured in the wake of the global downturn.

This was a more widely-held position until the Greek debt crisis focused policymakers' minds on cutting debt levels.

The Greek crisis showed that governments with high levels of debt find it very difficult to borrow money from international investors, money that they need to service existing debts.

Common goals
  In a letter to G20 leaders last week, US President Barack Obama warned against cutting national debts too quickly, arguing it would put economic recovery at risk.
Canadian flag  
Why we all want to be Canadian Canada row over $1bn bill
 
But Mr Geithner said the US and Europe "have much more in common than we have differences".

"We all agree that we have to restore responsibility to our fiscal positions. Everyone agrees that those deficits have to come down over time to a level that's sustainable," he said.

But he said that the US and Europe would take "different paths, at a different pace" in order to reach the common goal.

"It's going to require different things as we have different strengths and weaknesses," he said.
Mr Geithner said the US was not in a position to work out what were the best policies for European countries to pursue.

The treasury secretary said the US had laid out "very ambitious plans as well" to cut its deficit.
But he said the US was in a stronger position than many other economies to cut its debt levels.

"We're in the very good position of being able to deliver relatively strong growth rates [compared] to what we're seeing in other major economies," he said.

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China's yuan hits new high

Some analysts say the yuan is undervalued against the dollar by up to 40 per cent [EPA]
China has revised the exchange rate for the yuan, putting its currency at its highest level yet as international pressure builds on Beijing to allow the yuan to strengthen.

On Friday the Bank of China set the central parity rate, or the daily official level, at 6.7896 to the dollar, 0.3 per cent stronger than Thursday's 6.8100.

The rate is a weighted average of prices given by market makers, excluding highest and lowest offers.

It marks the yuan's strongest level since China freed its currency from an 11-year-old peg in July 2005 and moved to a tightly managed floating exchange rate.
On Friday the yuan weakened slightly in early trading to 6.7900 on China's main foreign exchange market.

'Basically stable'

In a vaguely-worded statement, the central bank said the yuan would remain "basically stable".

"This is not a big move, but it is significant. President Hu can point to it as evidence that China is serious about making its currency more flexible when he meets other G20 leaders in Toronto"
Brian Jackson, senior analyst, Royal Bank of Canada
China has tweaked the rate up and down this week ahead of the G20 summit and has a history of letting the yuan strengthen slightly before sensitive events, seen as an attempt to defuse criticism that it keeps the currency too low, giving Chinese exports an unfair advantage

Friday's move is widely seen as a bid to head off rancour at the upcoming G20 meeting in Canada following intense pressure on Beijing to embrace currency reform as part of efforts to enhance a global economic recovery.

Some experts say the yuan is undervalued against the dollar by up to 40 per cent.
Barack Obama, the US president, said on Thursday it was too early to determine the impact of China's limited currency reform although he viewed the move as "positive".

Speaking ahead of his meeting on Saturday with Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, on the sidelines of the G20 summit, Obama maintained that the "undervalued" yuan provided China "with an unfair trade advantage".

For the past two years China had effectively pegged the yuan at about 6.8 to the dollar to prop up exporters during the global financial crisis.

Criticism

The value of the yuan has long been a source of tension between China and its major trading partners, particularly the US and EU.

Critics say the policy gives Chinese producers an unfair advantage and prices competitors out of the market.

US legislators, unmoved by Beijing's action, have threatened to press ahead with legislation they said will treat "currency manipulation" as an illegal subsidy and enable US authorities to impose tariffs on Chinese goods.

China however repeated a warning on Thursday against "protectionist" retaliation over its currency policy, saying an appreciation in the yuan would not solve the Chinese trade surplus with the United States.

Brian Jackson, a senior analyst at Royal Bank of Canada in Hong Kong, said the yuan's limited moves this week might be enough to deflect criticism at the G20.

"This is not a big move, but it is significant," he told AFP.

"President Hu can point to it as evidence that China is serious about making its currency more flexible when he meets other G20 leaders in Toronto."
 Source: Agencies Newscribe : get free news in real time   

Best Places In Asia To Be A Landlord

Indonesia tops the list of places where you can make the most by renting out an apartment.


HONG KONG -- Property prices in some parts of Asia are skyrocketing; since the first quarter of 2009 China's rose 68% and Hong Kong's 31%. But some of the best real estate buys may be farther south. 

Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia top the list of best places in the region to be a landlord, according to rental-yield data calculated by the Global Property Guide, a research house and website. In those places the cost of buying an apartment is relatively low compared with the money that can be earned by renting it out.

"We try to explain to people where they should be investing," says Matthew Montague-Pollock, Global Property Guide's publisher. "One reason is for income. One is for capital gains."

In Depth: Best Places In Asia To Be A Landlord
 
Montague-Pollock's team collects its information using in-house research, information from accountancy and law firms, and central bank and national statistical data. It ranks 13 Asia-Pacific countries in terms of rental yields (technically, the gross annual rental income expressed as a percentage of the property purchase price) in upscale parts of their major cities. These include areas like Hong Kong Island and the central residential neighborhood of Boeung Keng Kang in Phnom Penh, Cambodia--places where at least moderately well-heeled professionals live, be they expatriate or local.

Jakarta boasts the best rental yield, 12.34%; Manila has 8.98% and in Kuala Lumpur a landlord can make back 8.76%. Rounding out the top five are Bangkok, Thailand, and Auckland, New Zealand.

"Not only will you make more money from the rent, but also the chance that the value of your property will appreciate is greater," Montague-Pollock says. "The yields are an excellent signal of property markets in general."

Local Indonesian markets are attracting the attention of fund managers and property developers from places like Japan, India and Singapore, according to Anton Sitorus, head of research at Jones Lang LaSalle ( JLL - news - people ) Indonesia. But they are finding some obstacles.

"Unlike investing through the stock market or through project-financing schemes, investing directly in real development projects or by buying property in Indonesia is regarded as difficult and complex for investors and individuals from overseas," he wrote in an op-ed in the Jakarta Post. "Current laws and regulations and a lack of market transparency are the main concerns hampering foreign investment."

Meanwhile, the Philippines is a particularly good pick, according to Claire Brown, founder and managing director of Claire Brown Realty, which specializes in investments in Southeast Asia for clients in the region as well as in China, Europe and the U.K.

"Most capital cities are much more expensive now. The Philippines is still really, really cheap for buying real estate," Brown says. "We've got a development in Ortigas, an up-and-coming CBD [Central Business District] in Manila. We have units for $70,000, which is ridiculously cheap compared to Hong Kong."

Number three Kuala Lumpur is another promising buy, Brown adds, pointing to a new residence called Verve Suites in a high-end suburb called Mont Kiara. Three months after opening, this property--a serviced one with amenities like a pool, gym, movie theater and restaurant--is half-owner-occupied and half-tenanted. Malaysia's investment channels are easier to navigate, she says.

"You can get bank financing up to about 80% even if you're foreign. The capital gains tax has been slashed to 5% so it's easy to get in and out of that market," Brown says. "There is an abundance of expats who are happy to rent, but there is also a huge amount of local interest.

If your tenants are a mix of local nationals and a smattering of expats, you’re going to have good, healthy rental income and very few void periods.”


There are some downsides, however, to becoming a landlord in these developing Southeast Asian markets. For one, there are often roadblocks facing foreigners looking to buy property.

"You can't just walk in as a big American fund and buy a building, necessarily," says Andrew Ness, executive director of CB Richard Ellis Research Asia. "The lack of openness is what tends to keep yields high."

By contrast a place like Singapore, he adds, has a "more pronounced boom-to-bust syndrome because of its openness to global capital." Though its yields are lower--and it ranks number nine on the list with a rental yield of 3.79%--it offers other pros.

"It's the most open economy with the least restrictions on foreign investors," Ness says. "It’s the most transparent. The only problem is that a lot of the best assets are held by government-linked properties. It's not a place in Asia where we see a lot of distressed debt."

Ness also warned of the risk of inflation in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, as well as the reservations some foreign investors still hold after the protests in Bangkok this spring and recent terrorist bombings in Bali and Jakarta.

Indonesia, though, didn't suffer the same consequences from the global financial crisis as other Asian nations. The archipelago's economy relies less on overseas investment, which contracted in 2008, and on exports, whose buyers cut back around the same time, according to Bagus Adikusumo, director of real estate research firm Colliers International Indonesia. Those developments make Indonesia's economic climate look more attractive and resilient by comparison to its neighbors, he says, because "the other countries are getting less and less rental yield and revenue." 

The growth of industry in Indonesia will also help boost property markets. "More and more companies that are growing and expanding are going to bring more and more expatriates," he says, citing companies like U.S.-based Marathon Oil ( MRO - news - people ) and Australia's Pearl Oil as well as financial firms like Standard Chartered ( SCBEF.PK - news - people ). One of Indonesia's biggest banks, CIMB Niaga, is also expanding and bringing Indian and Malaysian expatriates to Jakarta to work. "They need more and more good quality apartments for them to rent."

Aspiring landlords, take note.

In Depth: Best Places In Asia To Be A Landlord

The Future Of Japan-China Relations

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Apple's iPhone 4 makes stellar world debut

SAN FRANCISCO – Apple fans mobbed stores in Japan, Europe and the United States in an iPhone 4 frenzy that promised blockbuster sales despite some opening day blemishes.
Apple's iPhone 4 makes stellar world debut
A customer looks at an iPhone 4 at the Apple Store 5th Avenue in New York June 24, 2010. [Agencies]
Hundreds of people queued up through the morning on Thursday outside the Apple store in downtown San Francisco, where one person reportedly sold a place in line for 400 dollars and another swapped a spot for an iPhone 4.
Some online complaints about iPhone 4 signal strength being hampered by a troublesome antenna design did not deter those in the queue.
"It's all rumors until we get them," Robert Freedman of San Francisco said as he waited to get his hands on an iPhone 4 to replace a model he had "beat the heck out of."
"People are walking out with them and saying they are using it and everything is fine," Freedman said.
Features luring people to the iPhone 4 include high-definition screens and "Face Time," which uses a forward facing camera to enable video chat.
"I've been an Apple head since I was a teenager," said Richard Polote, a 26-year-old San Francisco man who had been waiting outside the store since 2:30 in the morning.
"I feel pretty confident that whatever problems do arise, Apple will solve them in a timely fashion with upgrades or whatever."
Some new iPhone 4 owners were chagrined to discover that cupping their new smartphones so that their palms covered the lower left corners choked off the strength of the telecom service signals, according to videos posted online.
Based on the intense launch-day demand for the iPhone 4 the analyst thinks Apple will sell them as quickly as they can make them.
"Apple told me today they are building them as fast as they can," Baker said. "Expect a serious constraint on supply, which in turn will add to the hype of people desperately wanting to get one."
Whatever launch day sales figure Apple reports "is going to be huge," the analyst predicted.
In Paris, Senegalese businessman Bassirou Gueye joined some 350 people queuing before the opening of Apple's flagship store in the city, located in the chic underground shopping mall of the Louvre museum.
"I made a special trip to Paris to buy the iPhone 4. I'm interested in its high-tech features," said Gueye, a self-avowed Apple aficionado who already owns half a dozen brand-name devices.
Some buyers in France, however, reported problems activating their new phones because of technical problems with operator France Telecom.
In Germany, there were long queues at Apple stores and phone company Deutsche Telekom complained it did not have enough handsets to meet demand.
"By lunchtime iPhones in the high tens of thousands have already been sold. In Munich we have sold out," said Deutsche Telekom spokesman Dirk Wende.
Some 500 customers waited in line outside Apple's flagship Regent Street store in London when it opened its doors -- far more than those who queued for the launch of the iPad tablet last month.
Japan's eastern time zone put it first in line to sell the phone and hundreds braved sweltering humidity outside Apple's store in the Ginza district to get hold of the smartphone.
"I am truly amazed there were huge lines in Tokyo," Baker said. "It matches the original iPhone roll-out and that just blows me away."
The original iPhone launched in 2007 brought smartphones to the masses. Apple has sold more than 50 million of the handsets in the past three years.
But its latest version enters a crowded market full of rivals boasting bigger screens and running on Google's open-source Android operating system, which is more accessible to developers than Apple's tightly guarded system.
Sales of a white iPhone 4 model have been delayed to the second half of July because of unspecified manufacturing difficulties.
Carriers in the United States and France were forced to suspend early orders because of heavy demand. Apple said last week that it set a single-day record of 600,000 orders for the new smartphone.
The new iPhone will be available in 18 other countries in July and 24 more in August.
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G20: Fiscal challenges may threaten recovery

WASHINGTON: World leaders will warn this week against taking the global economic recovery for granted while also noting that the huge costs of stimulus can hurt long-term growth, a draft G20 document shows.

The Group of 20 (G20), which meets in Toronto this weekend, has won credit for preventing a global recession in 2008 from becoming a depression.

But as the economy recovers, G20 unity is fraying.
The group must still forge consensus on controversial topics such as how quickly to shrink government deficits, how best to strengthen banks so that they can withstand any new downturn, and how to harmonise financial regulatory reforms.

»It’s a question of getting the balance right« BANK OF CANADA GOVERNOR MARK CARNEY
 
The draft version of the summit communique, obtained by Reuters and dated June 11, reflected divisions over which policy priority ought to take precedence — supporting still-shaky growth or shrinking budget deficits.

Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney said governments must plan for austerity but not rush to tighten belts all at once.

“It’s a question of getting the balance right,” Carney said in an interview with Reuters Insider.

“Nobody should be looking to balance their budget next year. Nor should anybody be in a position where they think there’s no need to start laying out a plan to stabilise their debt position, the United States included.”

Europe’s simmering debt troubles are a reminder that when markets lose faith in governments’ ability to rein in spending, borrowing costs soar and countries are forced into swifter, harsher fiscal fixes.

While the economy looks healthier than it did when G20 leaders met in Pittsburgh in September last year, there are signs that the recovery may have hit a plateau.

Unemployment remains high in the US and Europe, the US housing market at the centre of the financial crisis is weak, and a gauge of European services activity cooled more than expected in June.

The G20 draft said the recovery was “uneven and fragile” and warned: “There is no room for complacency.”
At the same time, it said “fiscal challenges in many states are creating market volatility, and could seriously threaten the recovery and weaken prospects for long-term growth.”

The US has warned against withdrawing supports too soon, mindful of when the government slammed the brakes on spending in the 1930s, prolonging the Great Depression.

“We must demonstrate a commitment to reducing long-term deficits, but not at the price of short-term growth,” US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

European countries, led by Germany, argue that fiscal restraint breeds confidence which in turn sustains growth.

An EU diplomat said fiscal targets proposed by Canada were too modest and some rich G20 countries should do more. — Reuters

UK population nears 62 million

Birth and death rates, rather than immigration, are the biggest growth factor for second year in succession

Newly born babies in an NHS maternity unit
 
 
The number of births has fallen, but natural change still accounts for the bulk of the growth in the population figure. Photograph: Roger Bamber / Alamy/Alamy
 
The population of the UK reached nearly 62 million last year despite a second successive annual fall in net migration, according to figures published by the Office of National Statistics today.

The population rose by 394,000 from mid-2008 to reach 61.8 million at the end of June last year. The number of people in the UK has risen from 59.1 million in 2001, a reflection of fact that net migration and births outstripped deaths over most of the past eight years.

Last year was only the second time since 2001 that net migration was not responsible for the majority of the UK's population growth. The other was in 2007-8.

The bulk of the growth from mid-2008 to mid-2009 was due to natural change – the difference between births and deaths – which was 217,000. Migration accounted for 70% of population growth in 2001-2, while in 2008-9 natural change was responsible for 55% of growth .

Net migration – the difference between the number of immigrants and emigrants – fell 15,000 to 176,000 last year, but the total was still 23% above the 2001-02 figure of 143,000.

Natural change was down slightly on the previous year's figure but the number was still 250% higher than in 2001-2002, when 62,000 more births than deaths were recorded.

The number of deaths in the UK in 2008-9 remained at the same level as in 2007-8, but the number of births fell 4,000 to 787,000.

An ONS spokesman said: "Until mid-2008, the number of births was increasing partly due to rising fertility among UK-born women and partly because there were more women of childbearing ages due to inflows of female migrants to the UK. However the recent decline is driven by a decrease in the UK-born female population of childbearing age."

According to the data, women in their 20s and early 30s who are married are more likely to give birth than those who are cohabiting. But women aged 35 and above who were cohabiting showed fertility levels 58% higher than those who were married.

Last year's figures showed a 4,000 decrease in immigrants to 562,000 and an 11,000 increase in emigrants to 386,000.

The two successive falls in net migration, after years of increases, coincided with the introduction of the UK's points-based system for immigrants which limits the right to enter or remain in the UK to skilled workers. The introduction of the scheme by the Labour government in 2008 followed concerns that the far-right BNP party was winning support by playing on fears that immigration was stretching public services and pushing down the wages of the lowest paid.

The coalition government said today that new measures to curtail the number of migrants coming to the UK would reduce net migration dramatically.

The immigration minister, Damian Green, said: "We believe that immigration has been far too high in recent years, which is why the new government will reduce net migration back down to the levels of the 1990s – to tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands.

"Over the coming weeks and months the public will see us tackle this issue by introducing a wide range of new measures to ensure that immigration is properly controlled, including a limit on work permits, actions on marriage and an effective system of regulating the students who come here."

The 394,000 increase in the UK population last year amounts to a 0.6% rise, equivalent to the average annual rate of population growth since 2001. That compares to 0.3% each year between 1991 and 2001 and 0.2% each year between 1981 and 1991.
 
By Haroon Siddique
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Asian currencies to rise in looming slowdown: StanChart

By Chris Oliver, MarketWatch 

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Asian currencies could be about to break their long-standing link to the global industrial cycle and transform into good safe havens if the world economy heads for a new major slowdown, according to some analysts. 

Though they have historically tracked movements in the U.S. ISM Manufacturing Index, analysts at Standard Chartered said Thursday that the region's currencies may decouple from this pattern in coming quarters, thanks to China's new currency policy.


 Detail of a 1,000 New Taiwan Dollar note
 The [People's Bank of China] wants to show the market that  the new yuan exchange rate is genuinely flexible and more market-driven than the previous framework," Standard Chartered analysts said Thursday in a note co-authored by Shanghai-based head of research for Greater China, Stephen Green.

 The strengthening yuan, they added, is "medium-term bullish"  for Asian currencies by supporting widening interest-rate spreads with the U.S. dollar that attract capital inflows to the region.

As long as China manages to sidestep a serious economic slump, the region should ride out the coming storm with relative ease. China's economy will grow about 8% in 2011, easing from around 10% this year, according to the Standard Chartered forecasts.

"Global purchasing manager's indexes have peaked and will head lower in the second half," said Standard Chartered.

South Korea's won and Taiwan's dollar will be among those to lead Asian currencies higher against the U.S. dollar, starting from the fourth quarter, they said. The Malaysian ringgit, Indonesian rupiah and Singapore dollar were also seen as currencies that would benefit the most from a rising yuan.

The bank forecast that all major currencies in the region, apart from the Vietnamese dong, will be higher against the U.S. dollar by the fourth quarter of 2011, although the survey also excluded the Japanese yen, the New Zealand and Australian dollars and a few other units.



Chris Oliver is MarketWatch's Hong Kong bureau chief.

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Educating Malaysia the right way

QUESTION TIME By P. GUNASEGARAM
p.guna@thestar.com.my

Improving education quality and making it relevant is needed, not cutting exams.

THAT assessment is largely examinations-based is a significant part of the problems of the education system, but right now that is not the major one because there are so many demands upon the education system, the Govern-ment needs to prioritise them.

But first, let’s deal with the proposal to abolish the Ujian Penilaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) and Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) examinations, reportedly to make the system less exam-oriented and provide a more holistic education.

Will it? Most likely not, simply because the problem is not just these two examinations but the overall emphasis on academic results. There will still be examinations at the end of each term etc.

The bad effect of abolishing these exams is we will have no clue as to the standard of our students until they reach Form Five. By then it will be too late to take remedial steps to help the poorer students.

We need UPSR and PMR at least as a gauge to measure the standard of our students. But at the same time, we should look at other means to reduce the emphasis on exams by introducing year-long programmes which are project-based and will take into account extra-curricular activities.

The priority now has to be to improve the quality of education and here are 10 ways to do that.
Yes, many of these steps require time but a start has to be made now.

1. Better quality of teachers. This is simply the most important factor. It calls for the raising of both standards and incentives for teacher education and the continuous training of existing ones. Without this, nothing else will succeed.

2. Ensure a minimal standard of physical facilities for schools. While quality of teachers is most important, all schools must be provided with good basic physical facilities such as a playing field, hall, laboratories, classrooms and everything else that facilitates learning.

3. A syllabus that reflects holistic education. The syllabus itself must reflect the aims of holistic education by including subjects that cover living skills. We should look at greater emphasis on daily commerce – for example opening bank accounts, budgeting and investing.

4. Real emphasis on extra-curricular activities. Emphasis means teachers who are trained in these. Over the years there has been less emphasis on teachers specialising in sports, for instance.
It is necessary to produce teachers who specialise in sports and, within that, in some particular areas of sports.

5. Single-session schools. For proper emphasis on extra-curricular activities and stuff such as additional classes and time for homework, a longer, single-session school would be ideal.

This has been talked about for decades but nothing has happened to date.

6. Provisions for English Langua-ge education. With even science and maths not being taught in English anymore, there is a need to come up with more imaginative ways to ensure that the quality of English among our students improves.

We all know that English is important but we still do very little about it and allow the issue to be repeatedly politicised.

7. Provisions for mother tongue education. The national school system may see an increase in enrolment if adequate provisions are made and time allocated for pupils’ own language or POL classes.

This must not be merely for show and there should be enough hours and resources for a proper education in the mother tongue. A single-session school system will facilitate that.

8. Less politicisation and greater ‘professionalisation’ of education. The emotive issues such as language and culture should be taken out of education and a more accommodative and liberal spirit that takes into account the beliefs of all races and cultures should be part and parcel of the national school system.
Profess­ionals should essentially run education with policy agreed upon and set by the politicians.

9. Continuity of planning – 20-year plans will be good. The education system cannot be left to the whims and fancies of successive education ministers but should be guided by firm policy and a long-term rolling plan of 20 years.

Otherwise, key milestones targeted in earlier years will not be achieved as priorities are shifted elsewhere as new education ministers come in.

10. Keep up to date with education everywhere. Education methods and means are not static anywhere and they constantly change and evolve.

We have to make sure that we keep with the trends by getting people with both breadth and depth and put them in charge of the educational agencies.

Without a doubt, education is a pet peeve among all Malaysians.

The deterioration in quality over the years is terribly worrying and the time for doing something drastic and at the same time constructive is long past.

The rakyat will be eternally grateful to anyone who can put education right so that we start producing a new generation of really educated Malay-sians.
But the question remains as to who or what that will be.

> Managing editor P Gunasegaram started working life 33 years ago as a maths and science teacher in a Government school.