Norlida Hanim Mohd Salleh

Estimating tourism demand from China market to Malaysia

The arrivals of the Chinese people to Malaysia (Malaya) started since the early fifteenth century. At that time, they came as traders, seafarers and miners. The movements of Chinese people were very limited since at that time China was practicing a closed door policy with foreign countries. Thus, communications to and from China were very minimal. However, in 2001, the Chinese government had implemented an open door policy by participating in the World Trade Organization (WTO). The Chinese government had opened its economy to foreign investors through foreign direct investment by providing them various incentives. The beginning of 21st century saw an increase in the inbound and outbound movements of the Chinese people. By 2005, China was among the top 5 most visited global destinations. Similarly, outbound Chinese also increased and Malaysia was among their most popular choice. In 1990, only about 107.6 thousand Chinese tourists visited Malaysia. By 2006, however, this figure had increased to about 457.8 thousand; which was the highest number of foreigners outside the ASEAN region. This research tries to identify and estimate the importance of major economic factors that influence the increase in Chinese arrivals to Malaysia. Among other factors that could induce their arrivals are tourism price, traveling costs, income and informal promotion. The Asian economic crisis and the outbreak of SARs also have been included in order to understand how the short-run shock affecting their demand for Malaysia. Cointegration technique of Vector Error Correction Model (ARDL) is utilized to statistically estimate the importance of these variables in this research.

Intersectoral linkages in oil palm industry between Malaysia and Indonesia

Malaysia and Indonesia are both major producers of palm oil. The palm oil industry in both countries has contributed immensely to rural income and development. The purpose of this paper is to empirically contrast the similarities and differences in linkages between the Malaysian and Indonesian palm oil industry.The assessment is carried out using the hypothetical extraction method. Data used in this study were from Malaysian and Indonesian 2005 Input-Output Table. Empirical findings of this study revealed several similarities and differences of Malaysian and Indonesian palm oil industry. The linkage analyses in this paper indicated that for both Malaysia and Indonesia, the oil palm cultivation sector is economically more linked to the manufacturing sector than to the agriculture or service sectors. In other words, the cultivation sector not only has a strong economic pull on the manufacturing sector, but also strong economic push as well. The processing sector was found to be more backwardly linked to the agriculture sector and more forwardly linked to the manufacturing sector. Comparing the Malaysian palm oil industry to the Indonesian palm oil industry, the empirical findings indicated that the palm oil industry in Malaysia is more interconnected to the rest of the production sectors than it is in Indonesia. The overall implication of this is that the the Malaysian palm oil industry has greater influence on its economy than the industry does on the overall economy of Indonesia.

A comparison of local community sustainability of livelihood: A case study in Redang and Tioman Islands, Malaysia

In order to conserve and protect marine life, the Government of Malaysia has gazetted a total of 40 islands as marine parks. All activities that disrupt the stability of the marine eco-system are prohibited. This includes fishing which is the main occupation of communities on these islands. This policy had negatively affected the livelihood of the communities. This research analyzes and compares the case of communities of Pulau Tioman (TIMP) and Pulau Redang Marine Parks (PRMP). The analysis on livelihood sustainability is based on the perceptions of locals after the islands have been gazetted as marine parks. The five standard of living indicators which are human, physical, natural/environment, social, finance as well as threats/ uncertainties towards socio-economic changes were analyzed. The results show that in general, both the livelihood of both communities are satisfied in terms of human, physical and social assets. However, they lack satisfaction on the financial and natural/environmental aspects. The education element also needs to be addressed as there are still school dropouts among the children of these island communities. Nonetheless, the locals are still safe from socio-economic threats/uncertainties and disease outbreaks/disasters. In comparing the RIMP and TIMP, it is found that the TIMP community has better sustainable livelihood than that of the RIMP locals.

Kecekapan Teknikal Pertanian Padi di Indonesia: Kajian di Pulau Jawa

Kajian ini menggunakan Analisis Sempadan Stokastik (SFA) untuk menganggarkan tahap kecekapan teknikal dan menganalisis penentu ketidakcekapan teknikal dalam pertanian padi di Pulau Jawa, Indonesia. Data kajian ini adalah berdasarkan kaji selidik struktur kos pertanian padi yang dijalankan oleh Biro Pusat Statistik Republik Indonesia pada tahun 2008. Kawasan kajian terdiri daripada tiga daerah pengeluar padi di Pulau Jawa, iaitu Jawa Timur, Jawa Tengah, dan Jawa Barat. Keputusan kajian menunjukkan bahawa purata kecekapan teknikal di daerah Jawa Timur adalah 0.851. Manakala, di daerah Jawa Tengah dan Jawa Barat masing-masing adalah 0.836, dan 0.805. Pendapatan petani memberi kesan negatif dan signifikan kepada ketidakcekapan teknikal. Sebaliknya, umur petani, sumber pembiayaan dan saiz tanah memberi kesan positif dan signifikan kepada ketidakcekapan teknikal. Seterusnya, kesan pemboleh ubah lain seperti pendidikan formal, bantuan keraban dan marau bencana dan banjir ke atas ketidakcekapan teknikal adalah berbeza-beza mengikut kawasan.

Resource curses finance. Can humans stop it

Natural resource-rich countries shall enjoy better economic growth and socio-economic welfare than those that are less fortunate. Natural resources that have been endowed to these countries should be a genuine source of fortune and happiness. Surprisingly, everyday experiences and empirical studies show the reverse (Frankel, 2010). It seems that natural resource abundance is detrimental to economic growth. This puzzling phenomenon is known as the natural resource curse (NRC) hypothesis. In the past decades it has attracted voluminous research papers that try to empirically show the prevalence of the NRC and at the same time attempt to provide analytical explanations of why the NRC existed in the resource-abundant economies (Sachs & Warner, 1995; Leite & Weidmann, 1999; Gylfason, 2001; Gylfason & Zoega, 2006). In the literature, it is suggested that there are at least three theories explaining the NRC: ‘Dutch disease’ models (Sachs & Warner, 1999), rent-seeking phenomena (Tornell & Lane, 2000), and institutional explanations (Sachs & Warner, 1995, 2001). However, the empirical findings from these studies are still far from conclusive.