CHARACTERISTICS OF MALAYSIA

Culture
-The first people to live in the area were indigenous tribes that still remain.
-Chinese and Indian cultural influences made their mark when trade began with those
countries, and increased with immigration to Malaysia.
-Malaysians do not equate their nationality with ethnicity, but with citizenship and
allegiance.
-Malaysia contains speakers of 137 living languages
-Malaysian, or Standard Malay, is the official language, while English is considered the de
facto administrative language.
-Chinese Malaysians predominantly speak varieties of Chinese from the southern
provinces of China.

Population
-majority of the population in Malaysian soil is made up of immigrants and their
descendants.
-As of 2010, Malaysians make up 0.4% of the world's total population.
-Approximately 30% of current Malaysians are first- or second-generation immigrants.

Religion
-The Malaysian constitution guarantees freedom of religion while making Islam the state
religion.
-Approximately 61.3% of the population practice Islam, 19.8% practice Buddhism,
9.2%Christianity, 6.3% Hinduism and 1.3% practice Confucianism, Taoism and other
traditional Chinese religions. 0.7% declared no religion and the remaining 1.4% practiced
other religions or did not provide any information.

Food
-In particular, Malaysian food is heavily influenced by Thai, Chinese, Indonesian and
Indian cuisine.
-Malay food is generally spicy.
-Rice is an essential staple.
-Malaysian desserts are wonderfully colorful and creative.
-A popular dessert is Kueh Bahulu, mini sponge cakes that are dipped in black coffee.

Clothes
-Most Malaysians dress as Westerners do but many Muslim women wear long
skirts/pants and head scarves.
-On special occasions, people from each ethnic group wear their traditional clothes.
-For Malay women, they wear the baju kurung; Malay men wear the baju melayu with a
songkok on the head.
-Alternatively, the men wear batik shirts with trousers.

Politics
-The politics of Malaysia is based on a federal constitutional monarchy, in which the King
is head of state and the Prime Minister is the head of government.
-Executive power is exercised by the federal government and the 13 state governments.
-Federal legislative power is vested in the federal parliament and the 13 state
assemblies.
-The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature, though the executive
maintains a certain level of influence in the appointment of judges to the courts.

Economy
-Malaysia has a newly industrialized market economy, which is relatively open and state-
oriented.
-The economy of Malaysia is the fourth largest in Southeast Asia, after the much more
populous Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines, and 35th largest in the world.
-Malaysia is also the third richest in Southeast Asia by GDP per capita values, after
the city-states of Singapore and Brunei.
-Malaysia's economy is one of the most competitive in the world, ranking 14th in the Ease
of Doing Business Index for 2015.
-Malaysian economy is highly robust and diversified with export value of high-tech
products in 2014 stood at 63.3 billion USD, the second highest after Singapore
in ASEAN.
-Malaysia exports the second largest volume and value of palm oil products globally after
Indonesia.
 -Prior to the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the Malaysian ringgit was an internationalized
currency, which was freely traded around the world.

Currency
-The only legal tender in Malaysia is the Malaysian ringgit.

Natural Resources
-Malaysia is well-endowed with natural resources in areas such as agriculture, forestry
and minerals.
-t is an exporter of natural and agricultural resources, the most valuable exported
resource being petroleum.
-Malaysia is one of the top exporters of natural rubber and palm oil, which together with
timber and timber products, cocoa, pepper, pineapple and tobacco dominate the growth
of the sector.
-Tin and petroleum are the two main mineral resources that are of major significance in
the Malaysian economy.
-Malaysia was once the world's largest producer of tin until the collapse of the tin market
in the early 1980s.

Energy Resources
-Malaysia holds proven oil reserves of 4 billion barrels as of January 2014, the fourth-
highest reserves in Asia-Pacific after China, India, and Vietnam.
Nearly all of Malaysia's oil comes from offshore fields.
-Most of the country's oil reserves are located in the Peninsular basin and tend to be light
and sweet crude.
-Malaysia also holds 83 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of proven natural gas reserves as of
January 2014, and was the third-largest natural gas reserve holder in the Asia-Pacific
region after China and Indonesia More than half of the country's natural gas reserves are
located in its eastern areas, predominantly offshore Sarawak.
-Most of Malaysia's gas reserves are associated with oil basins, although Sarawak and
Sabah have an increasing amount of non-associated gas reserves that have offset some
of the declines from mature oil and gas basins offshore Peninsular Malaysia.

Taxation
-As of 2016, the Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia has lowered the effective tax rate to
24% for businesses with capital exceeding 2.5million ringgit. For the smaller companies,
the rate is 19%.