Strong Ringgit vs Visit Malaysia Year '07

If you do track foreign exchange (forex) closely, you should realise that Ringgit (RM) has performed strongly against most foreign currencies, including the US dollar, Japanese Yen, Indonesia Rupiah and Thai Baht.

In other words, our local currency now has more buying power when we go abroad.

So, perhaps it's time for us to travel overseas? hm...before that...

2007 marks the 50th anniversary for Malaysia, and hence, our government has launched a year long celebration called "Visit Malaysia Year". We also have our version of London eye in KL called "Eye on Malaysia". It's a lovely observation wheel situated on Lake Titiwangsa, overseeing the beautiful skyline of KL City.

Visit Malaysia Year 2007 is one of the major theme this year that should give KLCI a nice boost. When it comes to an increase in tourism, the first thing that pops up in an investment mind should be "which sector will benefit the most?"

Yup, you're right. Consumerism and Retail, Hotel, Transportation related etc etc...

hey,that's quite a number of sectors! Ok, let's filter down. Which's KL most famous landmark?

KLCC TwinTower! yeah, i know. But how do i make money out of this? If you believe in this theme, and you wanna "get a piece of" KLCC, perhaps KLCC Property would worth a look since they own KLCC.

Since it's a tourism year, some would say that the industry which will have the most positive impact would be the airport and airline. Hm...that's true. For most international travelers, their first gateway to Malaysia will be the airport. Let it be KLIA International Airport or LCC (low cost carrier terminal), both of them are owned by Malaysia Airport Holding Berhad (MAHB). Tak lain tak bukan, of course, in terms of airline, MAS and AirAsia should pop up relatively fast enough in our mind. If not, then they have done a lousy job in terms of advertising! Key note here: which one pop up first?

Airasia, one of my all time favourite company, is currently giving away 1 million free tickets and finally they are planning to fly over the 4-hour radius region!

MAS, as a measure of survival and being competitive, has follow suit and rolled out some low fares strategies as well. Good news for us travelers!

so, is it time for holiday?

if you have been wanting to go overseas for holiday, perhaps this is the time since our Ringgit is strong and tickets are relatively cheaper.

if you want to go holiday sometime later, but wanna make a gain out of this appreciating RM, great, perhaps you could purchase some foreign currencies now and hold on to it till the day you go abroad, but of course, please bear in mind that you won't be making any interests on the foreign currencies that you're holding in hand or under your pillow. :)

Another way to make full gain of this is to open some sort of foreign fixed deposit account with banks, which will convert your RM to forex, place them in foreign banks' FD, and upon maturity, you can reinvest in other foreign FD or covert them back to RM. But to do this, you should be hoping that RM will not appreciate any further!

if you want to make more, and for instance, if your son / daughter is studying in overseas, perhaps you could send more money over, deposit them into the foreign banks FD and gain some yield pickup from currency gain and higher deposit rate! ( I know most savvy mom dad investors have been doing this since ages ago...)

if you don't have any foreign exposure or not going anywhere abroad for holidays... well, perhaps VMY '07 investment theme should keep you occupy for awhile. :)

Good Luck investing!

p.s. Disclaimer: this article does not constitute a buy or sell advice. You should do more analysis before putting your money in!