We complain about our dropping Ringgit here a lot in Malaysia, but recent reports have revealed that the Ringgit is easily considered Asia’s strongest currency.
Consider that statement with a grain of salt, however, as Bloomberg’s report was based on how much the Ringgit has climbed recently, compared to the USD.
Once you drop low enough, there’s nowhere else to go but up.
If investor confidence is anything to go by however, we the rakyat will hopefully have a currency rise to look forward to.
For Malaysians with international dealings, this helped them take advantage of the stronger dollar. It also however, affected some of the more local-based businesses badly.
It was against this backdrop that Forbes’ roundup of the richest men in Malaysia came to be.
For those dealing in business, these are the faces they will be looking up to as Malaysia’s recent good fortune in currency hopefully gains more investor confidence.
Branded as Malaysia’s richest Bumiputra (as of 2015), Syed Mokhtar has had a hand in an absolute variety of industries ranging from engineering to sugar mills and the rice trade.
He had his humble beginnings as a rice trader in the 1990s and it was this business that eventually pushed him up into the Lembaga Padi Negara. This later led to supplier contracts for government-linked operations.
Today, Syed Mokhtar runs government-linked organisations MMC Corp and DRBHicom.
Described as a “reclusive tycoon”, he recently caught some flak for having sold 49.9% of the national car Proton to Geely Holding.
But it was his hold on the MMC Corp that won him some recent wealth from our long-standing MRT project.
It’s their participation in the project that increased share prices, and thus, Syed Mokhtar’s own fortune, according to Forbes.
Leave a Reply