Malaysia is back in the loop

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.”