Morning Brief

Roshan speaks to Steven Schwartz, Head of Asia-Pacific Sovereigns​ at Fitch Ratings, about Fitch’s Sovereign Ratings Outlook for Asia Pacific, particularily Malaysia. Steven discusses headwinds and risks for the Asian region as well as concerns for Malaysia, in particular the GST shortfall, oil revenue dependence and how the country compares to its peers. See omnystudio.com/listener for priv...

Roshan speaks to Steven Schwartz, Head of Asia-Pacific Sovereigns​ at Fitch Ratings, about Fitch’s Sovereign Ratings Outlook for Asia Pacific, particularily Malaysia. Steven discusses headwinds and risks for the Asian region as well as concerns for Malaysia, in particular the GST shortfall, oil revenue dependence and how the country compares to its peers. See omnystudio.com/listener for priv...

Islamic banks in Malaysia are poised to benefit from digitisation because of their lack of branches, according to Moody's. This will allow such banks to save costs and add more to expansion. While Malaysia is an Islamic Banking leader, Indonesia will quicken its pace given its large population and increasing banking and internet penetration. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Troubled Deutsche Bank is flushing out poor quality loans to a "bad bank" which allows them to improve the quality of their loan book and lend out more. The are also radically changing their business focus by abandoning the mission to be the "Goldman Sachs of Europe" and focusing more on the bread and butter corporate lending business. Also, Samsung is facing challenges on many fronts: trade tensi...

The policy to have Felda go into fast moving crops and livestock alongside palm oil is not new but would come in handy for diversification. Also, the Ministry of Education explains that YTL's "free" internet connection to schools comes with hidden costs. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As Malaysia's economy faces a soft patch due to trade tensions, we ask Julia Goh, Economist at UOB Malaysia if she  expects the regulators to cut rates at July's MPC meeting and what other tools does Bank Negara have at its disposal to boost the economy. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

July 12th is the deadline for e-hailing drivers to obtain a public service vehicle or PSV license, as required by the Ministry of Transport. About 10,000 drivers have passed and obtained this license over 16,000 applicants. If far too few e-hailing drivers obtain this license, the number of drivers on Grab and other platforms could fall which means longer wait times and higher fares. We speak...

0:51 - Last week marked the third anniversary of the Brexit referendum, yet the story is still far from conclusion. The UK is in the process of figuring out who will become the next Prime Minister and while the impact of Brexit is still too early to tell, some patterns have emerged. We speak to Jonathan Portez, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at King's College on how Brexit has affected t...

The Chairman of the Election Commission, Azhar Azizan Harun, highlights that data linkages have to be made and voter statutes confirmed for automatic voter registration to be implemented smoothly. Meanwhile, Chairperson of Bersih 2.0 is opposed to the idea of compulsory voting and feels that not voting is also a right. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We speak to Datuk Liew Vui Keong, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department for Legal Affairs about the motion for MP's to declare their assets and planned legislation to reduce the voting age from 21 to 18. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Local Police have made their first arrests, after two days spent compiling forensic evidence on the group of protesters who stormed the Hong Kong Legislative Council building on Monday. We speak to Professor Cabestan about what to expect following the protests, including the likelihood of a China crackdown. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Following the news that the current Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, may soon head the European Central Bank, we speak to Fernandino Giugliani, writer on European economics, about what this might mean. Fernandino weighs in on whether Lagarde’s nomination raises a concern   about the ECB’s independence. He also discusses how Madame Lagarde&rs...

0:08 - YTL Communications has accused the Education Ministry of breaching contractual obligations, over the supply of internet connectivity to 10,000 schools nationwide. 4:28 - The Edge reports that a group of businessmen, led by Former AirAsia Chairman Datuk Pahamin Abdul Rajab, have met with the Prime Minister to express their interest in helping the government turn Malaysia Airlines around. - S...

Malaysia Airport has submitted plans to expand the Penang International Airport under the new Regulated Asset Base framewok as new funding and investment models are explored. Also, with a potential contribution of 3 billion ringgit to the Malaysian economy, Airbnb is big business and helps homeowners with their mortgage but still remains unregulated. We discuss the merits of this new economy model...

0:32 - Both manufacturing and services PMI numbers are falling globally, is this the first sign of a slowdown and are there any policy tools that can help avert a potential crash? Rajiv Biswas, APAC chief economist at IHS Markit helps to answer that question. 5:45 - IMF Chief Christine Lagarde has been nominated as the next head of the European Central Bank (ECB). We discuss the skills and experie...

Amendments have been proposed to the Peaceful Assembly Act, to remove street protesting as a criminal offence. We speak to Lim Wei Jiet, Secretary-General of the National Human Rights Society, for his insights. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With trade war tensions continuing, we ask Ranjan Sharma, head of ASEAN TMT at J.P. Morgan about the substitution effect and who stands to benefit in this region. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We ask whether there should be a full-blown asset declaration to the public rather than stopping at the Speaker for MPs. Given that corruption is a toxic problem for the nation, deterrence and punishment also take precedence over privacy. The Morning Run Crew also discusses the new appointees to Khazanah's board, which reflect a pivot to both tech and China. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy...

Malaysia's public sector performance has been on a downward trend since 2014. The World Bank has raised concerns over the sustainability of our civil service wage bill as a result, as part of their latest economic monitor report. For more insight, we speak to Rajni Bajpai, Lead Public Sector Specialist at the World Bank Group, for her thoughts on Malaysia's civil service. See omnystudio.com/listen...

Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad said that Malaysia is making a movement towards the decriminalisation of drugs and reiterated that this does not mean the ‘legalisation of drugs.’ This means the removal of criminal penalties for those who are caught possessing and using a small quantity of drugs for personal use. Malaysia has some of the harshest laws on drug possession, so this mo...

Oh Ei Sun, Senior Fellow at The Singapore Institute of International Affairs tells us that there no hard details from the G20 Summit in Osaka, which in the end was hijacked by a surprise visit to the DMZ in the Korean Peninsula by US President Donald Trump. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Current talk of the US elections is dominated by observations of an extremely crowded Democratic field, with more than 20 candidates vying for the party's nomination. Following the first debates, which saw 10 candidates face off at a time, we speak to Capri Cafaro, Executive in Residence at American University's School of Public Affairs, and former Ohio Senator, for her insight into what the debat...

The sugar tax in Malaysia kicks in on the 1st July 2019. Plans for the sugar tax were proposed at the tabling of the 2019 budget last year to promote ‘healthy living’ amongst a population that has some of the highest rates of diabetes and obesity in South East Asia. We speak to Troy Donnell, Executive Director at Nielsen Malaysia to get a sense of how a sugar tax might impact cons...

00:37 - The Armed Forces Fund Board has issued a statement to clarify its decision to vote against FGV’s director remuneration resolutions. 07:27 - The Health Ministry has announced a move to decriminalize personal drug use. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

00:54 - The race for the Democratic presidential nomination shifted into high gear after the first round of back to back debates. The candidates had their say on a number of pressing issues, from healthcare, to climate change, to their views on big corporations. 04:03 - It is the first day of the G20 summit in Japan, where world leaders will gather in Osaka until the 29th to discuss important glob...