Sunday, November 18, 2007

依赖石油彩票

The following article on "Oil & Gas Lottery" was published in my weekly column in Oriental Daily on October, 22nd. I wrote on the same issue on this blog in my earlier post here. ;-)

马来西亚是一个得天独厚,拥有丰富天然资源的国家。我们特别要感激国家拥有大量的石油与天然气,以致国油(Petronas)能够成为国内唯一挤身《财富杂志》500 强的公司。截至2007 年3 月的财政年度,鉴于国际原油价格在过去4 年内,从每桶低过25 美元飙升至超过70 美元,让国油取得763 亿令吉的税前盈利。

最重要的是,国油去年透过税务、石油税、分红及出口税,为国库带来了537 亿令吉的收入。国油及其它设在马来西亚的石油与天然气公司,预计在2007 年为政府带来46.8%的收入。相较于2004 年约25%,以及2006 年约30%,国油不断增加为国家所带来的收入。这些统计显示当前的马来西亚非常依赖石油与天然气工业。

马来西亚拥有丰富的石油与天然气资源,就好比中彩券般幸运。这个资源总有一天会耗尽而不再复返。根据《石油与天然气期刊》,马来西亚截至2007 年1 月的石油诸藏量,从1999 年巅峰时期的46 亿桶下跌至30 亿桶。这个储备量大概只能让我们再支撑大约20 年。

除此之外,若以石油产品消费每年增长4%保守估计,马来西亚预计将在2010 年成为石油净入口国。我国当前的贸易顺差,乃因为跟石油及天然气相关的产品,占我国出口量超过11%所导致。这种过度依赖石油与天然气有限资源的可怕趋势,必然导致国家经济承受巨大的风险。

马来西亚不能跌入经济学家称之为“资源灾祸”的陷阱,即资源匮乏的国家发展比一些资源得天独厚的国家来得好。这令人想起香港、新加坡和瑞士对比拥有丰富油田但发展不健全的中东国家。这样的现象称之为“荷兰症状”。60 年代,荷兰在其北部海域发现油田和天然气,然而上述资源耗尽后,却被失业率和生产力
低的制造业困扰,这是发现资源的负面作用。

真正让马来西亚最担忧的是,生产领域过度依赖天然资源,造成“寻租经济”的现象 ,导致政府内外的掌权政党集中精力于取得较大份额经济蛋糕,而不是创造一个更大的蛋糕。

因此,为了确保一旦石油与天然气税收减少后,我们还可提高本身的生产能力,政府一定要以最有效率的方式,大量利用我们的彩票奖金投资在人文资本。诺贝尔经济学奖得主约瑟夫斯蒂格利茨曾说过:“丰富的天然资源,应该算是一种福气,而不是一种诅咒。我们都知道该什么做,可是缺乏的是政治意志来达成 。”

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can't read Chinese!
I can only read in Hebrew!

Anonymous said...

Tony,

Very insightful article. The short-sightness, stupidity, arrogance of the BN goverment will eventually bring a crisis to the nation.

That is the time when the citizens wake up and give a boot to BN, but I'm afraid it's too late to save the country when opposition takes over the power.

God bless!

Anonymous said...

Tony, the best way to improve standards, fast, is to reduce population, or control population increase, while setting up steps to improve education, investments etc.

The reason is very simple, you have more to spend on less, you can invest in better quality. Even if you have the same amount of GDP, but have less people to invest in, you will still have more resources per person to improve the quality.

After quality improve, then we up the population in accordance to success.

Anonymous said...

To my brother Tony Pua,

Bro, why la you bother to change our Malaysia?? It is already fabulous as it is. Malaysia is a land of boundless opportunities. For example, a railway gatekeeper can go on and build a massive palace with 16 bathrooms. Another example, a police inspector can accumulate wealth well over RM20million.

Come to think of it, I should have join our police force right after university years ago. I kinda like the idea of our police force being an enterprising one.

In our Malaysia anything also boleh one.