Consumers need to wake up

The Government has placed great importance on domestic consumption in its New Economic Model instead of just relying on Foreign Direct Investment but two glaring omissions by the World Economic Forum in its Global Competitiveness Report are income disparity and consumer protection.

THE World Economic Forum (WEF) has ranked Malaysia the second most competitive country in Asean after Singapore. Malaysia jumps up five positions to 21st from 26th a year ago in the 2011-2012 Global Competitiveness Report (GCR) of the forum which is based in Geneva, Switzerland. We are ahead of nations such as South Korea and New Zealand in the GCR 2011-2012 which covers 142 countries.