We just reached Singapore's 2003 IFR ..

Mahathir Mohamad once said, just a few months before he retired in office, that Singapore could afford to have this and that because it had some USD 80 billion plus in International Forex Reserve (IFR). Well, Malaysia had just reached this position. Bank Negara Malaysia just announced that its IFR as at 30/08/2005 is USD 80.1 billion. With this amount in reserve, Malaysia can sustain 9 times its import costs or 7 times its short term loan. To be sure, Singapore's IFR should now be between USD 100 to 130 billion, a level that Malaysia can never equal or surpass, unless Singapore goes bankrupt overnight. And by the time our IFR becomes USD 100 billion, Singapore's IFR would go up even further.

And as for those who thought that Malaysia's decision to de-peg and float the Ringgit would bring about benefits to them, well, the other day I noted that the exchange rate is RM 3.7999 to the US dollar. Compare this to the pegged rate of RM 3.80 to the US dollar. Ha ha !