THE influential Lex column in the Financial Times summed up best the foreign reaction to the outcome of the recent Malaysian general election when it said: “Malaysia is back.”
The column noted that “since the 1997 Asian market crisis, foreign investors have viewed the country with suspicion and even hostility.” Memories of capital controls took a long time to fade, the column said, adding that “even longer to dent were ingrained perceptions of crony capitalism.”
