Government is our main roadbock, through its fear of ideas

Since its inception, BFM Radio, a business radio station I founded, has tried to expand our broadcast footprint beyond the Klang Valley, only to meet official intransigence. We have dedicated programming for entrepreneurs, so that they can be matched to potential funders, business partners, customers, but all this is for nought outside of the Klang Valley. Our fault seems to be that other parts of our programming demand the same fiduciary responsibilities of government that the private sector demands of its corporate leaders.

So yes, the Malaysian government is our main impediment to growth. But maybe there's an unintended consequence: It has forced us to go abroad to seek growth.

It's interesting how government restrictions has caused some of our Malaysian companies to go abroad and become global or regional leaders - Eversendai, who built one of the KLCC towers through a subcontract by the Koreans, was not given more work in Malaysia and had to go to the Middle East, where it went on to build the Burj Al-Khalifa, and now is the global leader in steel structures.  Other examples include Top Glove, Supermax (no. 1 and 2 global leaders in the rubber glove industry), and AirAsia (the way AirAsia is treated by Malaysia Airports, given that the passenger traffic that AirAsia brings is the single most important reason for MAHB's success, is abysmal). We also now see entrepreneurs being squeezed out by government-linked entities (SP Setia, E&O, Sunrise), and government entities competing with private sector for business (1MDB, a fund guaranteed by taxpayer's money is competing  with a slew of private sector entities for renewal of power plant concessions).