General

In conjunction with Women's Entrepreneurship Day on the 19th of November, we celebrated women's entrepreneurial journey through BFM's Women’s Entrepreneurship Day event on the 16th of November. We had an empowering conversation with Rina Neoh from Ficus Capital, Anabelle Co-Martinent from PhutureFoods and Nadira Yusoff from Kiddocare to learn about the challenges women entrepreneurs face.

This event was presented by Allianz Malaysia.

这一届大选我们看到绿色浪潮，右翼势力的崛起。国盟在年轻选民身上布局，他们善用年轻人喜爱使用的TikTok作为吸票工具，利用挑起种族情绪、宗教课题等等极端言论，来争取穆斯林年轻选民的支持。大马是东南亚最大的视频消费国，也是TikTok增长最快的市场之一。所以也就不难想像TikTok对大马的选情所造成的深远影响。 

Google laying off 10,000 employees, Shopee having its third round of layoff this year, and trimming from Netflix, Twitter, Meta and the ongoing recession -  many have been laid off. And it’s predicted for layoffs to ramp up after Christmas. It creates inevitable stress and anxiety among employees wondering whether they’ll be the next to be laid off too. What can you do when you’re laid off? And what can you do about layoff anxiety? We speak to Dr Anasuya Jegathevi Jegathesan, Dean of Psychology and Social Sciences, University of Cyberjaya to touch on this.

Image Credit: Shutterstock | ASDF_MEDIA

ChatGPT, a chatbot from OpenAI, has been creating headlines with its incredible ability to generate screenplays, write code and seemingly answer questions on any topic. Sage or snake oil: is it too good to be true?

Image Credit: Kulturpop | MidJourney

The Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) food security definition is when “all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.” The pandemic showcased how many in Malaysia alone were affected. Kenneth Chai, the co-founder of Airgro shares how they are addressing this need in Sarawak.

Image Credit: Shutterstock | Ihor Hvozdetskyi

BFM 財今节目『开门见商』12 月头线上直播论坛重温：本年度最后第二场，谈「安华新内阁」。

首相拿督斯里安华组织了联合政府下的新内阁，其中震撼弹可谓一颗颗接踵而至。「法庭帮」尽数入阁之余；对前朝政府「首相兼任财政部长」的作派颇有微词的新科首相，却也以求稳之名，自担两大要职。对此，学者与行业专家有何看法？新内阁、新政府、新议会，对马来西亚的后疫情时代；2023 年份财政预算案，又会有哪些可能的建树？

On this week's WTF, we talk about US banking sector job cuts, the foiled attempt to bring down the German government and also political upheavals in the wake of GE15.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Interest rates in the US are likely peaking in 2023 as the Fed has guided the pace of rate increases to be smaller, while signs of inflation concerns continue to abate. This is reflected in the widening spreads between the 2 year and 10 year US Treasury which is now at 0.8% compared to 0.4% in September. Will this finally make bonds a viable option as an asset class? For insights, we speak to Jesse Liew, Chief Investment Officer, Fixed Income ASEAN, Principal Southeast Asia.

This Market Outlook is brought to you by Principal Asset Management.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is in the midst of calling for an investigation on Digital Nasional Berhad (DNB), the government entity tasked for the 5G rollout in Malaysia. Part of the review will be on the tender process which was perceived to not be done in a transparent manner. New Communications and Digital Minister Fahmi Fadzil also assured that the current 5G rollout will still continue. How will Malaysia's 5G initiative pan out with all these delays and especially when the country is already behind regionally? For answers, we speak to Alexander Wong, Managing Editor and Co-Founder of SoyaCincau.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Malaysia has continued to slide down the rankings of Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index CPI), despite pledges to combat corruption by successive governments. On International Anti-Corruption Day, we discuss the institutional reforms that need to be prioritised to make commitments to clean government more than just aspirational rhetoric.