a b s t r a c tThe trends of reserves, production and consumption of oil in Malaysia to meet the ever-increasing demands do not seem to show that oil and gas will be depleted soon, contrary to many reports. Malaysia's net exporter status of oil continues to expand over time for as long as the value of exports is greater than the value of imports. Only in physical quantities of oil that Malaysia's imports exceed exports, but this does not mean that Malaysia will be a net importer by then. Given higher prices of exports, the value of exports outweighs the value of imports. If the current reserves are extracted based on the domestic consumption trend of 1980-2010, Malaysia's reserves will last until 2027 but based on the 1998-2010 trend, the reserves will be depleted by 2035. Malaysia has adopted a four fuel diversification strategy comprising oil, gas, coal and hydro, instead of heavily dependent on oil. Gas has a huge potential for domestic utilization as well as for exports to increase revenues. Malaysia is one of the few countries having many types of renewable energy sources. Malaysia has great potential in biomass utilization as renewable resources mostly from the existing natural forest and planned plantations.

This paper presents the relationship between different types of blockholders with information asymmetry in Malaysian firms. To be more specific, this study divides the ownership structures into managerial blockholder, institutional blockholder and individual blockholder and ownership concentration while holding firm size and trading volume as control variables. On the other hand, the stock volatility and bid-ask spread are used as a proxy for information asymmetry. A sample of the top 150 largest public listed firms in term of market capitalisation is chosen from Bursa Malaysia from 2011 to 2015. Panel regression analysis is used to examine the data. The results show managerial blockholders, firm size and trading volume significantly influence information asymmetry. While institutional blockholders, individual blockholders and ownership concentration exhibit no relationship with information asymmetry. The study from this result can be useful for investors and the policymakers in Malaysia as it gives a clearer picture and more understandings on ownership structures and information asymmetry in the Malaysia market.

The objective of this study is to identify the impact of trade liberalization on economic growth in Japan. Annual data are utilized from 1985 to 2016 via on Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model (ARDL) Cointegration test and Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) based Granger causality. The findings from unit root tests revealed that all the variables of mixed results whereby they are integrated at I(0) and I(1) and could proceed to the ARDL Cointegration test. Furthermore, all the variables have long-run relationships between trade openness, investment, education, inflation and economic growth in Japan. However, this study found a significant positive of trade openness and investment on economic growth in the long run. Lastly, VECM based Granger causality showed some of the causality relationships between variables in the short run for Japan.

This paper aims to investigate the short and long term association between Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and overall consumer affordability in Malaysia Real Estate Sector using Vector Autoregressive model. Sample period used is 2009:Q1 to 2017:Q4. FDI is scapegoated as the leading cause of decreasing affordability in real estate. In most cases, FDI on real estate contributes to the rising income of the country. Increasing income promotes demand to a higher threshold level. Thus, theoretically will cause housing price to increase. Through this study, evidence of no cointegration and absence of Granger causality converge towards deficiency of relationship among FDI and Housing Affordability Index (HAI). Findings pointed out FDI is not the cause of decreasing HAI.

This study aims to examine the level of public awareness of climate change issues in Sabah. A total of 300 respondents were involved from several districts in Sabah namely Tawau, Lahad Datu, Sandakan and Kota Kinabalu by using the random sampling method. Data obtained from the questionnaire was analysed by using SPSS software. The result shows that more than 70% of respondents are aware of climate change issues and are concerned with the environment. However, the respondents have lower awareness of green products and government policy related to climate change. Furthermore, the use of green products among respondents is at a moderate level. This indicated the respondents had environmental concerns, but they have lack of knowledge on green consumerism, government policies awareness and green consumerism action. Hence, this study recommends that educational climate change programmes and public awareness campaigns are very crucial to address the low level of green product awareness and practice.