KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 5 (Bernama) -- Foreign parties, including the World Bankand International Monetary Fund (IMF), had no say in the legislation ofMalaysia's macro economic policies, especially those concerningprivatisation, finance, liberalisation and trade deregulation, the DewanRakyat here was told Tuesday.

Ministry of Finance Parliamentary Secretary Datuk Seri Dr Hilmi Yahayasaid that the policies were legislated based on what the country needed,apart from taking into account whether it could be implemented in thecontext of development, external challenges and the aspiration ofMalaysia's multi-racial society.

"In the context of globalisation, Malaysia which has an open economy, needto monitor the strategies and policies of other developed countries, as ithas an impact on the country in legislating such strategies, which couldensure that the country's economy is always strong and competitive," hesaid.

Apart from that Malaysia is also looking at the best practice worldwideand the experience of other countries so that it could gain the maximumbenefit from it, he said in reply to a question posed by Datuk Abdul RahimBakri (BN-Kudat who wanted to know how much Bretton Woods (World Bank andIMF) had influenced the country in legislating its macro economicpolicies.

Hilmi said that the government's action in coming out with the financialpolicy its own way, was clearly seen during the financial crisis, wherethe World Bank and the IMF had disagreed with certain measures taken.

He said that Malaysia was lucky as it had internal financial source andneed not depend on the IMF or World Bank to salvage the country, also itwas not being controlled by the conditions imposed by the World Bank andIMF like some countries which had to borrow from the two world bodies.

"It is important for Malaysia to manage its economy wisely and avoid frombeing in debt with the two bodies to enable the country's economy to bedeveloped without being pressured with any stringent conditions," he said.

However, he said that as a member of the World Bank since 1958, Malaysiahas continued to interact with the two world bodies to ensure that itwould participate in decision making, structural changes and the twobodies' focus, to guard Malaysia's interest.

He also said that Malaysia, which started borrowing from the World Bank in1958, totalling US$3 billion (RM11.4 billion) to develop 100 developmentprojects since independence, no longer has any loans with the body since1999.

Meanwhile, Ministry of Plantation Enterprises and CommoditiesParliamentary Secretary, Ng Lip Yong, said that only 30 percent of the 209technologies and products, which emerged as a result of research anddevelopment (R&D) carried out by Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) offeredto the industries and entrepreneurs were successfully commercialised.

MPOB is currently encouraging companies to produce `alpha sulphonatedmethyl ester' from palm to be used as detergent, he said in his reply toHasni Mohmamed (BN-Pontian).

Ng said that in terms of downstream palm-based products, MPOB is workingat producing suitable oil for the cold climate .

To-date, he said that some of MPOB's R&D products, which have beencommercialised are food products like red palm oil, SMART BALANCE oilformulation as well as SAFaR a kind of fat to replace animal fat insausages, among other things.

-- BERNAMA