E L SERVICIO PÚBLICO MUNICIPAL DE BIBLIOTECAS

Regarding the 30$ Malay share reservations, the D.A.P. agreed with the A.C.C.C.I. that it was extremely unfair to Chinese business concerns. The general feeling among the Chinese w a3 that it had taken them years of hard work and struggle just to build up their business concerns from scratch

56

to their present positions'; They felt that legislation to force them to share 30$ of what they had painfully acquired with others who did not have to experience any suffering at all was not only unfair but illogical. The 55* New Straits Times, 13th December, 1978*

principle of private enterprise, which the T.M.P. upheld, would be infringed

if industries were compelled to take in 2>Cf/o Malay equity partnership and

,

57

therefore 3O/o of all board members. Added to this was the extreme difficul­

ty of the industries concerned to find suitable Malay business partners, es- 58 pecially those who would be compatible, sincere and had the cash to invest; The D.A.P. stressed that even former U.M.N.O. leaders considered the legis­

lation unfair. It cited the former Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, who

commented that the implementation and thereby implication, of the I.C.A. was wrong, with privileges being forced on the Malays and disregarding the intri-

59

cacies and complexities of how businesses were run; As such, the Tunku held

that the "incubation" of Malay businessmen through legislation would deprive them of the experience of years of entrepreneurship that Chinese businessmen

had acquired. As a result, the Tunku concluded that incompetent and passive

Malay business partners would be created who would be a liability rather than an asset to the business community.

Taking the theme of the 30$o Malay share reservations further, the D.A.P. alleged that it was a ploy to cover up the false hope and consequent despair created for the Malays in harping on too ambitious a target on share ownership in the first place. The T.M.P. had stated that Malay ownership

of the share capital, being only 2.4$ in 1 9 7 0» was targeted to rise at an

57 * Ibid.

58. Ibid.

59« Dr. Chen Man Hin, the D.A.P. Chairman, quoted the Tunku’s comments

fully:"The way in which it(i.e. the I.C.A.) is being implemented is wrong. We have to help the bumicutra3 get a fair share in the economic life of the country which is the main aim of the policy. But it is wrong to force upon the buminutras a load they cannot shoulder. Not

only does this interrupt orderly growth of industries but the system creates men of straw - people who participate without investing a single cent, or having the competence to contribute to the company's development". New Straits Times, 13th December, 1978, op. cit.

average annual growth rate of 43*6$ from 1971-75 and from 25.870 from 1976-80^ This had assumed that corporate assets grew at a constant rate of 10$ per annum. The D.A.P. considered these targets to be too high, calculated to

pacify Malay extremists at the commencement of the N.E.P. In a fervour of

economic nationalism and realizing that much was needed to be done to raise the low Malay percentage of share capital within a comparatively short time, the U.M.N.O. leaders who initiated the I.C.A. were either blind, chose to ignore, or seriously underestimated the adverse consequences from certain unforeseen circumstances beyonft their control. The D.-A.P.'s contention could be justified by the uncertain economic growth rate, the fluctuations of the share market, the value systems of the Malays and the exploitation tendencies of some Chinese businessmen. To be fair to the D.A.P., it was unlikely that corporate assets would grow at a constant rate of 10$ per annum as this would

have to depend on a constant economic grovzth. In reality, economic recessions

and inflation, which were becoming more often, slowed down the economic growth rate. The technicalities of the stock exchange are complex and due to con­

stant fluctuations of the laws of supply and demand, the market value of shares are likely to change frequently. Thus to reap the full benefits of participation in the share market, a sound knowledge of the technicalities of the laws of supply and demand and the trend of how share prices move, is

necessary. The traditional values of the Malays, based on Islam, were likely

to make them attach less importance to the workings of the share market, which 6l

could be interpreted as some form of gambling. Lastly, it had always been

60. The Third Malaysia Plan, 1976-1980, p. 86.

61. For full details of the value systems of the Malays, see Brien K. Par­

kinson, ’ITon-Economic Factors in the Sconomic Retardation of the Rural Malays", M o d e m Asian Studies, Vol. I No.l, 1967» pp« 31-46.