sell everything to outsiders.

Musa: Drop race quota to help woo foreign investors to South Johor
KUALA LUMPUR (March 21, 2007): Former deputy prime minister Tun Musa Hitam says the government should exempt the Iskandar Development Region (IDR) in South Johor from policies that favour the bumiputras to help attract foreign investors to the huge growth area.
Musa, who sits in an advisory panel for the project, said policies that gave the bumiputras privileged access to government contracts and guarantee a minimum presence in the workplace may deter foreign companies interested in investing in the IDR.
According to a Bloomberg report based on an interview with the former DPM, Musa said contract awards "will have to be on merit".
"The Malays will have to face competition," he said.
The IDR is the largest development project announced by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to push economic growth. He is seeking foreign investors to help fund the RM383 billion two-decade-long project that will transform Johor.
Musa sits on the advisory council for the Iskandar Regional Development Authority (IRDA) that drives the mega project. The other members are Tan Sri Samsudin Osman, Malaysian sugar king Robert Kuok Hock Nien, Tan Sri Kishu Tirathai and Datuk Panglima Andrew Sheng.
Musa said the council agreed that the bumiputra programme should be dropped for the project. "I am confident that this bumiputra thing, if I may put it this way, need not be the negative factor, and I am stressing this in this particular exercise.
"There needs to be a revision, updating, of the way we approach it," he told Bloomberg.
He said incentives to take part in the IDR were being finalised, and Middle Eastern and Japanese investors were among those who had agreed to come in.
Bloomberg also interviewed Manu Bhaskaran, a Singapore-based partner at economic research company Centennial Group, who said: "It would be an exit route, politically. Johor (the IDR) is an extremely important project. The affirmative action programme and all the related problems do turn off foreign investors."
Reaching the project’s targets, without the programme, would allow the government to remove the policy in other areas, he added. "It shows that at the top ranks of the system, there are people who are thinking well."
Foreign direct investment in Malaysia in 2005 dropped to RM15 billion from RM17.6 billion in 2004, according to the government’s Statistics Department.
Last year’s figures have yet to be released.

tunku : musa hitam, thanks for showing you care about the bumis. your committee has agreed to drop bumis programme in IDR.who do you think you are, i understand your other fellows in yr committee if they are asking for it but you, a bumi want to kill off bumis interest in their own very land.you and the pm are from the same species, sell everything to outsiders, let outsiders rule malaysia indirectly. let the bumi suffer on their soil.you tell me which foreigner is hesitating to invest in malaysia because of the bumi issue? if the FDI drops it is because your good buddy the pm's way of managing the country not because of bumis issue. thank god that you were out from the government, if you as our pm now, god knows what will you do.