Northern Terengganu Integrated Development Project (IADA KETARA) Impact Assessment on Paddy Farming Sustainability

Paddy farming is a key agenda in achieving food security in Malaysia. One of the government's policies for achieving this goal is through the establishment of the Northern Terengganu Integrated Development Project (IADA KETARA). This study is intended to clarify the effects of IADA KETARA on sustainable paddy farming based on economic, social and environmental aspects. For the purpose of this study, a total of 425 rice farmers were selected as respondents for their perceptions related to the purpose of the study

Paddy Field Conversion in Malaysia : Issues and Challenges

Abstract. The diminishing of paddy field due to land use conversion to non-agricultural or non-paddy agricultural purpose is a serious threat to national food security prospect. This present study intends to explain the phenomena of diminishing paddy field range in Malaysia. This is a descriptive correlation study. The result of the study found that the size of paddy field in Peninsular Malaysia either according to the state or the granary area was diminished. According to the state, the size of paddy field has reduced by 88,321 ha (22.17%) in the last 15 years or equivalent to 1.49% per year. Whereas, according to granary area, the size of the paddy field has reduced by 10,790 ha (5.10%) or equivalent to 0.34% per year. The diminishing of the size of the paddy field indicates a significant correlation to the national paddy production. In the meantime, the population growth is expected to increase whilst productivity expands slowly. The government needs to emphassion this matter to attain the goal of food security. Konversi Lahan Sawah di Malaysia : Isu dan Tantangan Abstrak. Berkurangnya lahan sawah karena konversi penggunaan tanah ke non-pertanian atau tujuan lain yang bukan lahan padi merupakan ancaman serius bagi prospek ketahanan pangan nasional. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menjelaskan fenomena berkurangnya lahan sawah di Malaysia. Hasil penelitian ini menemukan bahwa ukuran sawah di Peninsular Malaysia juga daerah lainnya atau lokasi pusat padi/lumbung juga berkurang. Berdasarkan data nasional penurunan luas lahan sebesar 88,321 ha (22,17 %)  untuk 15 tahun terakhir atau setara dengan 1,49 % per tahun. Sedangkan pada daerah lumbung, luas sawah telah mengalami pengurangan sebesar 10,790 ha (5.10 %) atau setara dengan 0,34 % per tahun. Berkurangnya lahan sawah ini terindikasi adanya korelasi yang signifikan untuk kondisi produksi padi secara nasional. Sementara itu , pertumbuhan penduduk diperkirakan terus meningkat pada saat produktivitas padi mengalami pertumbuhan dengan lambat. Pemerintah perlu mengendalikan hal ini untuk mencapai tujuan ketahanan pangan nasionalnya

Evaluating the Role of Energy Efficiency Label on Consumers’ Purchasing Behaviour

AbstractThis paper was designed to explore the influence of energy labelling toward the consumer purchasing behaviour. Based on information from a total of 117 samples, this paper finds mean correlations between consumers’ awareness, knowledge, attitude, social norm and energy efficiency labels with purchase intention. Energy labelling shows a negative correlation with green purchasing behaviour. This finding demonstrates that energy labelling was fruitless to deliver a good message in encouraging consumer buying decision. Energy labels have to be understood, trusted and valued as a tool for consumers’ decision making. It is believed that the use of energy labels alone is not considered enough to protect the environment. Thus, all the stakeholders should enhance some other factors as a complementary to the energy labelling programs

Education as a catalyst towards realising the development goals of Malaysia: case study of the east coast economic study OF THE EAST COAST ECONOMIC REGION

As contained in her national development mission, Malaysia is expected to become a developed and high income economy by 2020. A mission favourably referred to as the Vision 2020. The realisation of such a noble goal will not come on a silver platter. Perhaps this awareness underscores the identification of certain sectors of the economy by the Malaysian government as key to achieve this development target. And education, to generate innovative knowledge for sustained economic growth, is one of the sectors. To achieve the status of a developed economy can be hard, especially in the midst of deep-seated development disparities among regions in the economy. Removing development imbalances among regions is believed to have positive impact on long-term economic growth. It also reduces income inequalities among citizens and increases their livelihood chances, thereby leading to higher living standards. For this reason, the Malaysian government has adopted a regional development approach, which seeks to correct regional development imbalances for accelerated and sustained development. This paper examines one such region—the east coast economic region (ECER)--where education has been seen as one of the important sectors to bridge the development gap between this underdeveloped region and the other relatively developed regions in Malaysia

A CGE Analysis of the Economic Impact of Output-Specific Carbon Tax on the Malaysian Economy

Environmental pollution is an emerging issue in many developing countries and its mitigation is increasingly being integrated into national development policies. One approach to mitigate the problem is by implement pollution control policies in the form of pollution tax or clean technology incentives. Empirical studies for developed countries reveal that imposition of an carbon tax would decrease CO2 emissions significantly and do not dramatically reduce economic growth. However, the same result may not apply for small-open developing countries such as Malaysia. The objective of this study is to quantify the impact of pollution tax on the Malaysian economy under the backdrop of trade liberalization. To examine the economic impact and effectiveness of carbon tax, a single-country, static Computable General Equilibrium model for Malaysia is constructed. The model is extended to incorporate output-specific carbon tax elements. Three simulations were carried out using a Malaysian 2000 Social Accounting Matrix. The first simulation examines the impact of halving the baseline tariff and export duty while the second solely focused on the impact of output-specific carbon tax. The third simulation combines both former scenarios. The model results indicate that the Malaysian economy is not sensitive to further liberalization. The reason could be attributed to the fact that Malaysian export duty is already low. Additionally, simulation results also indicate that while imposition of carbon tax reduces carbon emission, it also results in lower GDP and trade.Trade, Air Emission, Environmental General Equilibrium, Malaysian Economy

A COMPUTABLE GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM APPROACH TO TRADE AND ENVIRONMENTAL MODELLING IN THE MALAYSIAN ECONOMY

Environmental pollution is now a serious problem in many developing countries. One approach to mitigate the problem is to implement various pollution control policies. However, due to a lack of adequate quantitative models, the economic impacts and effectiveness of many pollution control policies are still unknown. Therefore, there is a greater need to know whether economic liberalization, trade, environment and social welfare can be joined in one direction under environmental taxation and policies. Empirical studies for developed countries reveal that imposition of a carbon tax would decrease CO2 emissions significantly and might not dramatically reduce economic growth. To our knowledge there has not been any research done to simulate the economic impact of emission control policies in Malaysia. Studying the potential economic impact of emission control policies is very important because inappropriate policies that reduce carbon emission may at the same time reduce highly economic growth. It is thus important to find the correct pollution tax that could be imposed such that environmental pollution is reduced at the same time does not dampen economic growth. The method developed for this study is applied computable general equilibrium model (MYCGE) for imposing environmental taxation policies in the Malaysian economy. Three simulations were carried out using a Malaysian Social Accounting Matrix. The first simulation is related to the trade based and the last two are carbon based simulations. The model results indicate that further trade liberalization is not sensitive in the Malaysian economy. Particularly, the reasons could be attributed to the fact that Malaysian export duty is already low and Malaysian trade policy already highly liberalized. The carbon tax policy illustrates that a 1.21 percent reduction of carbon emission (via carbon tax) reduces the nominal GDP by 0.82 percent and exports by 2.08 percent; a 2.34 percent reduction of carbon emission reduces the nominal GDP by 1.90 percent and exports by 3.97 percent and a 3.40 percent reduction of carbon emission reduces the nominal GDP by 3.17 percent and exports by 5.707 percent.Trade, Air Emission, Environmental General Equilibrium, Malaysian Economy

From poverty reduction to poverty relief: impact of non-farm income in Integrated Agriculture Development Area (IADA) Samarahan, Sarawak, Malaysia

Eradication of poverty is the main agenda of the country since independence (1957) and a main thrust of the New Economic Policy (NEP) when it was introduced in 1970. As a result, Malaysia has been able to achieve the goal of reducing poverty, from 52.4% in 1970 to 1.7% in the year 2012. This study examines the impact of non-farm income on poverty and its effect on the time taken to attain relief from poverty. Face-to-face interviews with 220 households of farmers in the Area of Integrated Agricultural Development (IADA) in Samarahan, Sarawak were conducted from December 2005 to February 2006. The objective was to investigate the effect of non-farm income on poverty and to measure the length of time out taken for farmers to emerge out of poverty. The analysis on poverty measurement was done using FGT indices as proposed by Foster, Greer and Thorbecke; and the index introduced by Murdoch was also employed in this study. The results showed that non-farm income reduced poverty by 47.06%, while the poverty gap declined by 58.67% and the intensity of poverty (severity of poverty) decreased by 80.69%. The time required to break away from poverty for poor and hard-core poor farmer households with nonfarm income were 8.16 years and 6.51 years, respectively compared with 11.49 years for poor and 8.67 years for hard-core poor farmers without non-farm income. This proved that non-farm income sources were essential in reducing the transition period from poverty reduction to poverty relief for farmers in the IADA

Current Status of Municipal Solid Waste Generation in Malaysia

Recent investigations in 2010 resulted information that population of Kuala Lumpur City Area has reached 1.66 million people (JPM, 2009). With the population growth rate of 6.1 percent, then the population in the year 2010 can be estimated at least to 1.69 million people. The number of municipal solid waste generated from Kuala Lumpur State Territory and delivered to TBTS was recorded of 2,000 tonnes per day. Accordingly, the solid waste generation average for any person is 1.2 kilograms a day. From the survey found that almost total respondents, has already knew about the zero waste program and other government's waste management program. But this has to be mentioned if there was about 14% of the total respondents that have already recycled on their solid waste. Several of them have no convinced reason about why did they want to do a recycle thing. Though recycling activity in Malaysia is rising up, the recycling industry still needs to be enhanced. The price of solid waste (plastic) collected from plastic used market at several places on Kuala Lumpur City area is about RM 0.45 per kilogram, due to data taken on May 2010. If the population in 2009 is about 1.66 millions, then the plastic value per day will be RM 179,280. The potential gross value calculation for one year period can be reached  about RM 43,027,200. This potential value should be an additional income if the Government can build and develop an integrated plastic recycling market. At present, Taman Beringin Transfer Station has been taking care of the average of solid waste at 2,100 tonnes per day. The capacity of this waste generation has been increasing in numbers, from 1,700 tonnes, since initial operation in 2002. In estimation, TBTS budget is around of RM 30,000,000 in the period of one year only for the purposes of simple operational cost. Government Board of Kuala Lumpur City should reconsider a better solution for funding that operating cost

Macroeconomic effects of carbon dioxide emission reduction: a computable general equilibrium analysis for Malaysia

This study analyzes the macroeconomic effects of limiting carbon emissions using computable general equilibrium (CGE) model in the Malaysian economy. Doing so, we developed an environmental computable general equilibrium model and investigate carbon tax policy responses in the economy applying exogenously different degrees of carbon tax into the model. Three simulations were carried out using a Malaysian Social Accounting Matrix. The carbon tax policy illustrates that a 1.21% reduction of carbon emission reduces the nominal GDP by 0.82% and exports by 2.08%; a 2.34% reduction of carbon emission reduces the nominal GDP by 1.90% and exports by 3.97%and a 3.40% reduction of carbon emission reduces the nominal GDP by 3.17% and exports by 5.71%. Imposition of successively higher carbon tax results in increased government revenue from baseline by 26.67%, 53.07% and 79.28% respectively. However, fixed capital investment increased in scenario 1a (1st) by 0.43% but decreased in scenarios 1b (2nd) and 1c (3rd) by 0.26% and 1.79% respectively from the baseline. According to our findings policy-makes should consider initial (1st) carbon tax policy. This policy results in achieving reasonably good environmental impacts without losing the investment, fixed capital investment, investment share of nominal GDP and government revenue.Emission; Environmental General Equilibrium; Malaysian Economy

Impacts of External Price Shocks on Malaysian Macro Economy-An Applied General Equilibrium Analysis

This paper examines the impacts of external price shocks in the Malaysian economy. There are three simulations are carried out with different degrees of external shocks using Malaysian Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) and Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) analysis. The model results indicate that the import price shocks, better known as external price shocks by 15% decreases the domestic production of building and construction sector by 25.87%, hotels, restaurants and entertainment sector by 12.04%, industry sector by 12.02%, agriculture sector by 11.01%, and electricity and gas sector by 9.55% from the baseline. On the import side, our simulation results illustrate that as a result of the import price shocks by 15%, imports decreases significantly in all sectors from base level. Among the scenarios, the largest negative impacts goes on industry sectors by 29.67% followed by building and construction sector by 22.42%, hotels, restaurants and entertainment sector by 19.45%, electricity and gas sector by 13.%, agriculture sector by 12.63% and other service sectors by 11.17%. However significant negative impact goes to the investment and fixed capital investment. It also causes the household income, household consumption and household savings down and increases the cost of livings in the economy results in downward social welfare.External Price Shocks, Applied General Equilibrium Analysis, Malaysian economy