KUALA LUMPUR: The Pakatan Harapan Government is open to criticism by investment analysts but such criticism must be based on facts.
International Trade and Industry deputy minister Ong Kian Ming said this when commenting on Swiss banking giant, UBS admitting on Wednesday that its senior officer Kelvin Tay had made wrong assertions about Malaysia’s economy when he spoke on the country’s current account deficit, during a live interview with Bloomberg TV on April 12.
UBS Singapore’s corporate communications head Adeline Lee clarified that Tay’s mistakes were due to the confines of the short interview adding that UBS “regrets any misunderstandings” as a result of Tay’s comments.
Ong was asked if the Malaysian investment market was affected by what Tay had said and that the incident showed that investment analysts in banks can make mistakes.
“It is also good they realised their mistake especially after Tony Pua (Damansara MP and DAP national publicity secretary) and myself came out with statements and they were able to clarify.”
“It is part and parcel of our engagement process and this is something symptomatic of the new government where we try to take proactive measures and issue our clarification points and engage the financial community to make them aware of our points and view. “
“We hope that other investment analysts will be more careful with what they say. It’s not that we are not open to criticism but they must be based on facts,“ he said.
