JULY 11 — Greeks decisively told their international creditors that they did not accept their bailout package, sending shockwaves across the world’s financial markets.

That it’s not yet the end… Greece is increasingly likely to exit from the eurozone. Once this is done, the impact on the eurozone and the entire world will be tremendous. The whole world is now focusing on what is happening in this Balkan state, watching closely the follow-up developments.

The Greek experiences should serve as a mirror for debt laden countries. However, such comparisons should also be made upon the basis of facts and objective data, and the issue should not be distorted or blown out of proportion.

There have been voices of late comparing Greece to Malaysia, claiming that it is likely for our country to step into the shoes of Athens. Unfortunately, the proponents of such a postulation have failed to take into consideration some of the most fundamental differences between the two countries.

The conditions in Greece are very different from those in Malaysia. Greece is panting under very heavy national debts running up to 170 per cent of the country’s GDP while Malaysia’s debts are at a more manageable level of 51 per cent of GDP. By comparison, our fiscal health is a whole lot healthier.

As for international credit ratings, we are also far ahead of Greece. Our sovereign debts have been rated “A-” by Fitch Ratings while Greece’s has been downgraded to a junk level of “CC.”

Economically, our economy is much more diversified, being backed by enormous natural resources. As for Greece, the country has been chronically dependent solely on tourism and shipbuilding industries.

Malaysia is not Greece in any way. There have been intricate reasons for the fast build-up of Greece’s debt crisis which should not be conveniently attributed to the problems of Malaysia although undeniably the Greek crisis should serve as a lesson for the administrators in Putrajaya as well.

The enormous Greek public service sector should partly take the blame for the county’s epic crisis. Here in Malaysia, we also have an abundance of workers on government payroll collectively drawing some RM65.6 billion from the coffers in salaries and other expenditures that should have been spent on other development projects. The government must take cue from the Greek experience and not to allow its public workforce to expand indefinitely to become a suffocating burden for the nation.

Another factor leading to Greece’s economic collapse is its generous public welfare policy. Although we are not a welfare state, our government has been generously distributing “candies” to win the hearts of voters in recent years, including BR1M.

In no way should we allow this kind of patronage policy to snowball into a tremendous load on the treasury. — mysinchew.com

* This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.