It’s been written that Fuziah Salleh, newly appointed chairman of the evaluation committee on Lynas’ rare earth refinery stated that “…the committee will obtain documents related to the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP) in Gebeng prior to its establishment in 2008 from the International Trade and Industry Ministry and also the previous Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry” She also said, “We will be fair and objective in our review, especially on the issue of the plant’s removal of all wastes, including the products made from the wastes, which are hazardous to public health and the environment,”
It interesting that Fuziah wants to go back to pre 2008, prior to its establishment, to find something to hold against Lynas. While she professes to be fair and objective, it is all too easy to prove that she is the opposite and harbors anger and contempt for Lynas.
Fuziah appears to have a local view of Lynas. She hates the LAMP. I have the idea that to her Lynas is a small Australian company that can be crushed with “found” environmental problems predating 2008. Never mind its excellent record the past ten years. “Fair and objective” for Fuziah, based on past actions, is close to the LAMP.
But she and the Malaysian government need to meet Amanda’s big brothers.
Read the Lynas Annual Report. Six MAJOR international banking firms: HSBC, JP Morgan, Citicorp, Merrill Lynch and UBS control 359,466,365 Lynas shares or 54.36% of all shares. Add in the shares Fidelity Investments owns and the percentage increases. The point is, it’s not small shareholders like me that Furiah is confronting; it’s the strength of the international banking system. None of the brokerage houses and international banks will take to kindly to the Malaysian government letting an angry woman shut down Lynas for a loss of $754.88 Million dollars to its account holders. Total loss if shut down might exceed $1.2 Billion dollars.
The Malaysian government must realize that Fuziah, if successful in shutting down the LAMP on false charges, it, Malaysia, has the potential of losing future international financial support, both from bankers and investment companies. Bankers are a close group and few would loan to companies considering investing in facilities in Malaysia if it is going to deal in bad faith long term. No investment companies would recommend holding stocks in companies in Malaysia when arbitrary and capricious reasons could shut down companies. No new investing means no new Malaysian jobs or opportunities. It would also adversely affect the future of nearly five thousand direct and indirectly related current jobs.
But then the other big brother might be more angry with Malaysia. Japan needs Lynas as the JARE financial agreement proves. In exchange for loans to Lynas, Japan receives a specific agreed upon amount of rare earths from Lynas, in the thousands of tons yearly. In that Japan is a major financial lender to Malaysia, Fuziah represents a liability to Malaysia’s future political and financial relationships with Japan. Can Malaysia afford to alienate Japan by allowing Fuziah’s anger to close the LAMP. Doing so would have significant adverse affect on Japanese manufacturing and by extension, on Japanese/Malaysian relationships.
The only alternative for Malaysia if Fuziah poisons the Japanese/Malaysian relationship is to accept financial help from China. But then, Malaysia need only think of Forest City to understand what dealing with China means. Simply put, Malaysia would become subservient to China. Right where China believes Malaysia should be.
Now that the Malaysian government has given Fuziah chairmanship over the Lynas evaluation it must be careful to place its future ahead of Fuziahs’ angst for the LAMP. In my opinion, an unwatched and uncontrolled Fuziah is a dangerous woman to Malaysia’s economic and diplomatic future.
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