Japanese retirees can boost Malaysia's industrial advance

Build Look East 2.0 on country's 'soft' advantages over Southeast Asian rivals

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Malaysia should seek to attract Japanese retirees with engineering or technical expertise as many played key roles in their country's postwar economic miracle. © Reuters

Guanie Lim is an assistant professor of Southeast Asia studies at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo. Aaron Pek is a former fund manager and the editor of Value Investing Substack.

Malaysian policymakers and business executives are increasingly focusing on the idea of rebooting the Look East Policy under which the country courted Japanese direct investment and used it to drive industrialization in the 1980s and 1990s.

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