Rafidah: Defender Of Equitable Trade

KUALA LUMPUR, March 18 (Bernama) -- Datuk Seri Rafidah Aziz, the world's longest-serving trade minister, has many attributes, foremost among these are bargaining hard and defending the rights of developing nations in trade negotiations and lifting Malaysia's stature as a preferred investment destination.

More than anything else, the outspoken and fiesty minister, who worked tirelessly, spared no efforts in raising Malaysia's international profile to stand on equal ground among nations.

The international community thought very highly of Rafidah and respected her, particularly because "she knew her stuff and her topic", something which the new ministers appointed to the current Cabinet should take heed of.

Rafidah, 64, who became trade minister on May 20, 1987, was today not named in the Cabinet line-up announced by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

She has been replaced by Agriculture and Agro-based Industries Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

From Asean to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation as well as the World Trade Organisation (WTO), she earned herself the reputation for being a no-nonsense trade minister.

On numerous occasions, in regional, global and free trade agreement negotiations, she told off her counterparts from developed countries not to impose unfair trade conditions, especially on poor nations.

At the Apec summit in Osaka in 1995, she literally stood between Japan's then trade minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and US Trade Representative Michael Cantor, vehemently proclaiming that Malaysia would not sign anything to liberalise further its trade rules other than those committed to under the WTO.

Given Apec's stature as a trade forum, she said any trade liberalisation initiatives should not be binding but rather voluntary, much to the delight of other developing Apec nations.

She was dubbed the "Iron Lady of Trade" for her courage in squaring off with the likes of US Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky during a WTO meting in 1996 in Singapore.

At a press conference during Apec 1998 which Malaysia hosted, she told off US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright -- another Iron Lady herself -- to keep to the Apec agenda and not to interfere in Malaysia's domestic politics when the latter ventured to comment on the sacking of former Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

In the process, developing nations sometimes referred to her as the champion of Third World interests in global trade talks. This was evident at the WTO talks in Cancun in Mexico in 2003.

There, she stood firm alongside her Indian, Brazilian and Indonesian counterparts to ward off pressures from the US and Europe to agree to a trade deal unless the developed nations themselves cut farm subsidies.

Although the talks collapsed, in retrospect, it was a victory of sorts for what has been described in newsreports as the assertive southern block of "developing" countries over the North.

At the WTO conference in Singapore, a trade minister, upon seeing Rafidah, remarked, "There goes Rafidah. She speaks on behalf of everyone."

Always in a rush because of her work commitments, she gave a new lease of life to her ministry and agencies under it as they played a pivotal role in attracting trade and investments.

She laid the foundation for team spirit to prevail at the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (Miti), the Malaysian Industrial Development Authority, Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation, Small and Medium Industries Development Corporation and other agencies under the ministry.

"Miti is what it is today because of her," says Chief Secretary to the Government, Tan Sri Sidek Hassan, who was secretary-general of the ministry before being appointed to his current post.

In a tribute to Rafidah last year, Sidek said the respect she commanded regionally and internationally has percolated throughout the ministry. Officers who represent Miti and Malaysia can speak with confidence because she has shaped and guided them by both her advice and action.

An avid golfer and grandmother, she led hundreds of trade and investment missions since being appointed trade minister, to almost all countries, but her focus was on the major markets -- Asean, US, Japan, China, South Korea, India, Europe, the Middle East and Australia.

A notable feature at the trade missions was the more than full turnout at the trade and investment conferences.

Here, after the customary and usually comprehensive opening speech, she would single-handedly field questions non-stop from potential investors from obstacles to businesses, incentives, taxes to even respond to such things as the price of her shoes and how good a bargain she managed to get for them, which reflected her humble nature.

The feedback from the packed audience was that they could get first-hand response from the minister herself to queries on trade and investing in Malaysia.

According to a pictorial biography of Rafidah last year commemorating her 20 years with Miti, its secretary-general Datuk Abdul Rahman Mamat says, "If there is one lesson we all can learn from Rafidah, it is the importance of being professional and having your facts at your finger tips."

It was this amazing vault of knowledge, coupled with her hands-on approach, which endeared investors, the business community, economists as well as the media to Rafidah.

She usually gave away thousands of her business cards at such gatherings.

Her sense of humour was also telling.

The minister said that the beeper at security scanners at airports would go off because of her "bionic leg" following a knee replacement surgery a few years ago.

Her missions continued to pay off, notably in 2006 where Malaysia's trade exceeded RM1 trillion for the first time.

Given the intense competition for markets and import tariffs dropping like nine pins due to trade liberalisation as nations vie for more markets, this was a major milestone for Malaysia, now the world's 18th largest trading nation in the world.

Even in forging free trade agreements with trading parners such as the US, Rafidah stood her ground defending Malaysia's right in continuing to implement the New Economic Policy.

She did not mince her words in arguing Malaysia's firm position not to include government procurement in the trade talks so that Bumiputeras would continue to receive contracts and not lose to foreigners under any FTA.

After all, Rafidah had always argued, of what use would an FTA or any trade agreement be for Malaysia if it undermined the rakyat's economic interests.

Tan Sri Asmat Kamaludin, Rafidah's course mate at University of Malaya and the longest serving Miti secretary-general, describing Rafidah as a "knowledge politician," had this to say:

"I respected her dynamism and her ability to get her hands on issues with rapid responses. I also admired her sense of responsibility as a public official, always being on time and almost never letting you down once committed to a function."

Rafidah's fiery demeanour, outspokeness and most importantly, her ability to deliver will be sorely missed.

-- BERNAMA