Unspun

The Malaysia Club in Jakarta last night signaled a more business orientation with it first business gathering a dinner talk featuring well-known business blogger Yosef Ardi (photo, right) and The Jakarta Post Managing Editor Riyadi Suparno as speakers. Malaysian Ambassador Zainal Abidin Mohamed Zain took time off from his diplomatic rounds to drop by.

The two senior journalists spoke on the theme Business and the Press and provided many insights to the 50 plus participants, mostly Malaysian professionals and entreprenuers. Of particular interest is an observaton by one of the speakers that Indonesian have the perception that Malaysians make better investors in Indonesia than Singaporeans. Malaysians, he said, are perceived to reinvest their profits in the businesses here while Singaporeans are prone to take back the money.

There is also an affinity for Malaysians as they are perceived to come from the same stock. Generally, Indonesians view Malaysia and Malaysians favorably unless someone here plays up nationalistic themes such as Ambalat. Then reason goes out the window and fanned emotions prevail.

A Malaysian participant complained that for all the professed affinity Malaysians still had poor coverage in the media. Hmmm…perhaps the Malaysians need to do more PR?

(disclosure: Unspun moderated the talk and is a committee member in MCJ)