StillSearching

All correct. But we need to pay attention why this article was written at this time.
This writer was paid to write an article this way.
There is no point for us to argue. We need to go...
I've heard from my friend even before this announcement of the new requirements that the foreigners are moving out of Malaysia because of how they've been treated during the lock-downs.

physdude

I think the whole thing started with Mahathir slamming Forest City and bringing up MM2H in this regard even implying that MM2H leads to PR and citizenship. Somehow, MM2H became the whipping boy for anti-foreigner sentiment when it is one of the smallest groups of foreigners in the country and is generally well behaved and contributes positively to the economy. I was expecting them to tighten up the MM2H to restrict it to genuine stayers and retirees (I think the minimum stay requirement is quite reasonable for example) and increase the requirements by a bit but the current one is completely insane and has more of a general "kick them all out" flavor. There has been an anti-MM2H campaign going on for a while now which is so unfortunate because the program is a win-win for all and this must be one of the most benign group of foreigners here. Perhaps some corners legitimately need tightening but this has little to do with logic or reason IMHO.

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se...-creating-fear

https://www.malaysiakini.com/news/369473

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia...azizah-1316386

RedApe

I've always wondered if this was a side-swipe attack on ethnic Chinese Malaysians (and others)...just a reminder that they were a lower status of Malaysian than Malays. Ironically back in the 1970's Mahathir was involved in successfully changing the ethnic makeup of Sabah by allowing the immigration of Muslim Philippines and then registering them as Citizens if they voted for UMNO. So maybe he saw what the Sultan was doing a mirror on his own behaviour. But Mahathir even said things like "come invest in Malaysia, just don't intend to live here" to international investors. Weird to me that they would rather have extractive investment, rather than people who would invest, stray and spend locally. This is more xenophobic...it's about culture and the fear that normal processes of contact will result in the loss of whatever they view Malay culture to be.

But those pushing this were not actually wanting people to stay longer...they wanted us to stay shorter, if at all. They view (as suggested by the article, and is in no way representative of all Malaysians) foreigners as a corrupting influence (but also as meddling and capable of reporting on things that are going on in the country). Recall it was Claire Rewcastle Brown and Sarawak Report (originally reporting on the lumber and palm oil tycoons in Sarawak) who exposed 1MDB, Saudi Princes, and the whole of UMNO's involvement. They could control the local media - who were basically mouthpieces for the ruling party. But "the foreigners".

It doesn't make sense financially, but in the context of playing into the hands of those who assert that MM2H is causing problems it makes excellent sense. "They are kicking them out...they must have done something wrong" It's like the utter absurd "cap"...which is 1% of the population. After twenty years they are only 1/10th of 1%. There is absolutely no need for a cap. To suggest there is suggests that this was a real problem. And it certainly won't be a problem after these absurd financial requirements are imposed. In a year they might have MM2H in country being about 1/100th of 1%.No new applicants and attrition go thousands of those needing to renew.

satumadu

I think it might be a good idea to make a clear distinction between "extension" and "renewal" as used by MM2H. If they don't walk back these "improvements" I can see them not grandfathering in existing visa holders when a renewal is needed. i.e. when their 10 year visa is up. But if one has a visa with some years left to go, and one gets a new passport needing a visa stamp for the remaining years... i.e. an extension... then I would hope they would honour the terms of the existing agreement. But we'll just have to wait and see.

StillSearching

Yes, we need to see this all in print. Will this be in October?

ssoomro

Random Musings..

well i have been thinking (admittedly, not my best suit) ..ever since the news of new MM2H requirements etc came out and we started opining on them etc..

firstly a few things to keep in mind.. the nature of being personally impacted tends to shut our minds to historical/non-partisan view of the situation (P.S. I have been reading Milton Osborne' superb "SouthEast Asia an Introductory History".. a great and succinct introduction to regions politics and history...i highly recommend it ) .. fight or flight instinct kicks in ...much before rationale cross examination does .. lets start with some basic realities ..

1: The changes to MM2H were/are proposed by an outgoing govt .. in fact already OUT govt ..that have NOT been promulgated.. at least i dont yet see them reflect on the agency' public (mm2h.gov.my) website .. IMHO these are last gasp efforts by an unpopular govt to muster some support .. and generally the sentiment in MY is to not implement these proposals..

2: in general .. anyone living in someone else' land ,,, cannot assert a claim.. we ALL should have alternatives .. if not ..we only have ourselves to blame..

3. Identity politics is no surprise.. I am ..well ....amused... to see so many of us here blaming opportunistic and guileless identity politics for what happened with MM2H.. forgetting its pretty normal just about anywhere.. Trump suspended all visa processing for Muslims and green card processing now extends over 10 yrs.. Brexit anyone!!!! .. no comments needed there

4. Frankly we are often to be blamed for not knowing/understanding the history of the country and region .. if u are a bumiputra (native Malay) .. Chinese and Indian problem was (and its true .. unfortunately) created by British colonial policies .. so for Bumiputra to enact policies that will not further dilute their political power . should not be looked upon with westernized view of "conveniently humanistic" glasses but that of indigenous groups trying hard to maintain, sustain and cultivate their own identities against strong diluting forces .. such ideas and movement are not uncommon ..plenty of such .. even modern.. examples in enlightened Europe (German right wing/Austria, Hungary/Denmark.. to name a few) .. so why is it an issue when a Asian country tries the same model ????

5. I think (at lease some of) the changes may be influenced by introduction of more expensive (Thai Golden Vida/Singapore retirement) regional ideas. Malay may think they have much to offer ( and I agree) and they have been selling it for too little.. hence the drastic changes..

As for many of us caught in the change (existing visa holders) .. i feel bad .. but not entirely so.. as I said earlier .. we should not have a claim on someone else' land .. especially on those who suffered 100+ yrs of colonial yoke..under some of the very nationalities we represent .. and apply our western logic on their actions.. if you didn't have a secondary/tertiary plan in place . u r the one assuming (assume = make and ASS of U and ME) .. and caught in the crisis .. well cry ur heart out and start packing

and the notion of who would come to MY for 40k ringgit etc .. however unfair .... unfortunately sounds like .....oh well.......sour grapes

I say all of those . who are thinking of Sarawak/Sabah.. and thinking/believing it will not suffer the safe fate..................be forewarned ..

oh one final comment .. dont hate the messenger lah hahahah

StillSearching

Yes, ssoomro, I agree with you.
We are simply astonished how they shot themselves in the foot.
This is not only about MM2Hers leaving. Who will trust Malaysia after that?
Nationalism is rising around the world...
We need to be flexible and skip like Bambi where the grass is greener.

We are not claiming on someone else' land here. We simply signed a contract with them, a contract which they created, not us. Now this trust is broken even if they reverse it to where it was.

RedApe

I'm not sure of what to take of your gloating "I told you so" statements and specifically stating that it "could" happen in Sarawak or Sabah.

Why not "Anywhere" and add in the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, etc. Even Singapore! All we can do is look at the relative stability and make an educated judgement. Unless we roll up our tents and return to Blighty (or wherever we have our once-anchoring).

We are after all, British Expats...and not British Stay-At-Homes.

To me the "racial" identity politics seems a lot lower in Sarawak. The conflicts between Indians, Malays and Chinese has long been heated...and even deadly... in the Peninsula. Many of the politicians from that era are still associated with the leadership of their parties. Not understanding the differences between the history of East and West Malaysia and then suggesting that its imminent in Sarawak is also an ignorance of history. West Malaysians sometimes think Sarawakians live in trees and hunt heads. Different Bumiputra in Sarawak and Sabah.

Sabah has a sightly different history as they have had issues with the Philippines - both in terms of spurious claims but also in previous governments of Malaysia actually allowing Muslim Philippino immigrants to easily gain citizenship to bolster electoral support .

And why is inconsistent to be equally concerned with right wing politics and ethnocentrism in Europe AND in Asia, or elsewhere? One can be appalled about what happens in ones own country as much as elsewhere. It's only inconsistent when someone complains about ONE group being mistreated because of "race", religion, ethnicity, etc., but saying its acceptable elsewhere, well, because we just don't understand their history. And that its all so pissed-modern to do so (but there was nothing modern about nihilism anyways...and some used to call it "being jaded" and apathetic).

BTW There is a distinction in philosophy called the IS-OUGHT distinction or "Naturalistic Fallacy". Understanding why something IS does not, and should not , mean that you consent to those actions. Understanding why Covid-19 is deadly and highly infectious desn't mean that we need to accept that cannot do anything about treating or reducing the spread of the disease. Understanding why the Ministers agreed to these onerous changes and did not grandfather in previous visa holders is not the same as requiring us to agree with them. Or to shut up and take it because they have the power. Of course they do. Of course there are consequences, economically and reputation inbternationally if they do so. But maybe telling people that somehow impacts on their indigenous rights?

BTW where are you going since you are packing your bags? Ssoomro? Is living in Hull your Plan B?

RedApe

For those who are not yet determined to return to their homelands in Blighty, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, etc.

https://dayakdaily.com/sarawak-welco...too-demanding/

Pretty much the same article here.

https://www.malaymail.com/news/malay...l-govt/2000074

Just to clarify. Under the current Sarawak MM2H rules.

The Sarawak MM2H Visa allows free movement between Sarawak and the Peninsula.
[Note: Under the emergency rules travel requires quarantine for all, citizens of Sarawak, Malaysia and non citizens, so that movement is restricted under reasonable health limitations for all traveller]

1)If you are over 50 you do NOT have to live in Sarawak. The only residency requirement for that age category is 15 days visit/year in order to get the first extension of you visa at the end of the first 5 years.
2) If you are 40-50 without children there is a Property purchase requirement- > RM600K condo or house. 15 days visit/year rule applies
3) If you are 30-50 with children and they enrol in a Sarawak school one does not have to purchase property in Sarawak. 15 days visit/year rule applies
4) Those 30-50 on a long-term health treatment plan under a gov't registered Physician serving in Sarawak can qualify for S-MM2H. 15 days visit/year rule applies

ssoomro

Thanks StillSearching ..

For the record .. i am none too thrilled with the new proposed requirements .. especially when it comes to impact on existing pass holder.
My point about posting those musings was to express some alternative views into the mix. Especially regarding Malay racial concerns etc.

I have quite a few Malay friends, they seem to be equally divided into pro-Bumiputra and against them.. but in general they do not have much issue with MM2H, and most consider the new changes misguided, draconian and ill advised.

As for the trust and contract is concerned, jury is still out, as i said, i have yet to see an official update of the MM2H program on the govt website. A country has every right to change their immigration laws, they can if they want to implement the new changes .. "for new applicants", its only when the new proposals are applied to existing pass holders that it becomes somewhat problematic.

Even then, contracts or a crazy beast (hence the size and complexity of Tort laws .. just about everywhere) .. I looked at my MM2H pass and cannot find anywhere a guarantee explicit or implied that the renewal of the MM2H at the terms i signed for it is assured, yes the advertisement and agents' sales pitch implied that, but again ...much can be written about truth in advertisement ..

Finally, trust is also a complicated matter.. do we trust Germany only a few decades after two great wars .. breaking MM2H contract stipulations .. meh I think the economic impact of MM2H program to MY is negligible ... I think i lost my faith in MM2H program the day when they locked us out of the country with no recourse at the start of the pandemic ..

Now back to regularly scheduled program

RedApe

I wish to apologize ssoomro. You are, like myself, an American. Unlike myself you seem fairly wealthy. I think people here have treated us non-Commonwealthers rather nicely. It seems rude to gloat and be unsympathetic on the plight of others who are decent hard working people (and not exactly for by any measure of the Poverty Index - especially not with Malaysia). They saw what they thought was a secure haven for the second home, were encouraged to buy housing, sometimes even under a different government program. You don't seem to be as affected, good for you.

BTW As Basil Fawlty constantly advised others "Germans, don't mention the War" ;-)

It's hard to get a measure on how much the MM2H program brings in. But when talking about investments of any sort it can be very slippery. Ive heard some of the "high-end citizenship for a fee" blogs talking about how the new Microsoft Cloud System Site is going to bring in RM10Billion. But is that mainly going to go into the servers designed, manufactured and brought in from elsewhere,. If I bring in my $200,000 record library from abroad that means nothing to Malaysia's economy. The critical thing is how much Microsoft is investing in the land, local staff, and taxes...probably just to lure Microsoft to Malaysia they received great discounts on the land and taxes.

MM2H is a mix of investment benefits to Malaysia and its sometimes structured in odd ways that I think are just borrowed from other models without actually understanding them. Take the FD. How does it benefit Malaysia to have money that is largely static except to provide liquidity. Admittedly when people hve to convert the foreign currency into Ringgit it helps the stability of the balance of payments in the Currency markets.
How many MM2H Visa Principal holders are there ~30,000 (after you remove the dead, lapsed, and non-renewed? That would mean about RM9 billion are held in MM2H FD's...maybe a bit less due to withdrawals (of which went into the economy). Let's say that people have another 2/3rd of that in other FD's, savings account, etc. So maybe RM12 billion or about US$4billion. So that's a pretty big chunk of change that, depending upon the anxiety of those on MM2H to repatriate those accounts. If it happened in one year it might trigger a run on the banks, but likely it'll just encourage a depreciation of the ringgit.

Personally I would have thought a better system would be to allow people to make withdrawals for any locally produced good or service...getting people to spend INTO the local economy rather than to take all that money with them, with interest (when they get jackbooted out of the country, poor naive devils). The high FD probably contributed to belt-tightening rather than more spending. And if people spend that foreign-earned income it also helps stabilize the currency exchange as well.

I think that one of the larger MM2H firms did a survey of spending for MM2H holder. The results were that a typical MM2H recipent spends about as much as the median "7 day" tourist over the same period of time but on different things (vehicle, rent/mortgage, tuition, healthcare, groceries, entertainment, etc.. Except that the MM2H holder was here much longer. Again numbers are hard to come by but if half the MM2H are long-term residents and stay in country 10 months a year (note: they may still pay rent and fees for internet, phone, etc while outside) that would be 25000 (based on the claim that > 50,000 primary, spousal and dependent visas have been issued) x 41 weeks...that's the equivalent of 1,025,000 one week tourists in terms of "incidental spending". Then there are the other half of MM2H that come in for a week, or a month. Maybe those would add on 25% to the numbers. So 1,250,000. How much does a one week tourist spend?
Malaysia's estimates that foreign tourists spend about RM3068/capita/day. or RM21,476/week. Probably an exaggeration. That would mean that is terms of incidental spending MM2H recipients spend as much as RM27billion annually. I suspect that MM2Hers actually budget a lot more than that and probably spend about 25% as much though reaching into non-salary accounts for big-ticket expenditures. Still we are talking about RM5-10billion annually. This without hardly any programmatic costs (no govt subsidy for festivals, events, attractions), or efforts to promote tourism to draw in new tourists .

And they are going to throw this away while chasing some elusive "high-spending celebrity"?

Now lot of those tourists are one day hops (some even commuters to work) from Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia or Brunei..So eliminating those -one has about 7,212,000 international tourists that came in in 2017. MM2H would make up about 17% of the total non-regional tourism economy.

Then there are the homes sold and the condo leases that are not renewed. Perhaps 15,000 MM2H live regularly "in country"...that's surely not beneficial to the real estate market. Those renters contribute rent year in and out. Over the last half decade a constant complaint of realtor was the serious overhang (unoccupied and unsold units). As I recall even numbers like 3000 overhang units was seriously impacting values. Even those that live outside either rent condos short term or use hotels when they visit.

How many dependent children attend schools? Once again remember that those are tuitions that support the teachers and facilities over a decade or more.

RedApe

Someone asked for the official document regarding the new provisions for MM2H,

Here's a link to the original Malay.https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid...51159434956470

RedApe

And another to the English translation.

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid...51159434956470

ssoomro

Hey RA...
Gloating ??? that will be farthest from what I intended.. my apologies to anyone who felt as such.. As previously stated, the purpose was to simply inject some alternative thoughts to the conversation that was mostly centered around unfairness of the proposed changes, and the reasons being racism, political/beaurocratic incompetence, economic fallouts etc.. Nevertheless none of my statements were intended to cause hurt or blame...(road to hell....) . as I have said .. i am in the same boat with fellow MMHers and if you look back at my postings . .i have initiated some discussions in past re: MM2H review and new requirements .. hoping the review will result in new requirements and incentives to update and improve the program for both MY and participants etc... The proposed changes have left us all.. participants and potentials... well ..THUNDERSTUCK

Anyhoo, yes, I am an American and ...no I am not farting gold coins (or Bitcoins for that matter) I am a working joe, with a decent job etc. I can potentially meet the new requirements (by skin on my teeth), but the cost/benefits ratio does not work out well.... Also Pandemic and resulting travel restrictions etc have taught a few new lessons regarding life as a vagabond etc.. I am now less inclined to put my eggs in one basket ..

I am reasonably well read (not as much as you) on the regional history and aware of the political/ethnic and social differences between peninsular and Borneo side of MY .. and the political tricks and promises made to get Sarawak/Sabah and Singapore to join the federation etc etc.. yet thanks for the insights...I was merely suggesting that political winds in this region tend to shift often and unexpectedly .. I do NOT think S-MM2H changes are 'imminent'...but I do think the are within the realm of the 'possibility'.... And i dont mind being wrong there .

I also think political stability in the entire region is precarious .. its just matter of degrees (and direction of wind) so caveat emptor..

I never said one should not be 'equally concerned" about racist/fascist/ethno-centric moods both here and back home .. I simply alluded that its just a human fallacy .. equally infecting ppl in all places .. so Malays need not be singled out ..

my pea-sized brain simply refuses to process the philosophical reasoning .. will have to munch on it some more

Finally .. back to Hull!!!... Hell NO I WONT GO .. i am from Sunny Florida .. land of weirdos and alligators.... it will take and act of God (or some black ops covert action) to land me in Hull....(with apologies to fine folks of Hull) .... Peace

ssoomro

Good number crunching there RA.... IMHO, the economic impact of MM2H ..is there . but in the overall context of MY economy . it is not significant enuff to override the social concerns .. however unfounded ... such as increase in housing cost, fear of Chinese invasion, cultural/religious mismatch and a number of other provocative button pushing concerns ..

To an average Malay.. short term tourists have far less impact than someone "competing" with them for housing/food/services .. and "jacking up" the prices etc..