Abstract-Logistics cost is an important factor affecting the competitiveness on both macro level (national) and micro level (firms). Logistics cost indicates the performance of logistics industry, efficiency level and its competitiveness. Despite of its significance, current state of logistics cost accounting and management in Malaysia has not properly addressed and the challenges surround logistics cost measurement remains incoherent. Therefore, this study aim to shed light on the current state and challenges of logistics cost accounting and management in Malaysia. This study conducted in two fold which are; 1) content analysis and, 2) survey analysis. Content analysis used to view current state and challenges in macro level with regards the concerned research, while survey analysis used to view current scenario in micro level. This study reveals three major challenges that become a barrier to fully understanding and implementing logistics cost accounting and management. First, there is no unified definition of logistics cost. Second, the measurement and cost component included in the calculation of logistics cost are not standardized. Third, there is a difficulty in collecting information and data both in published sources and direct sources. This study conclude with the importance of having standard logistics cost accounting measurement, which plays a vital role in determining the accuracy of the logistics cost and ascertain the efficiency level of logistics industry particularly in Malaysia.

This paper examines the cointegration between sectoral indices in Bursa Malaysia and the selected macroeconomic variables, namely, oil price (OP), gold price (GP), and exchange rate (ER), during the period 1995-2014. The underlying series are tested by using Unit Root Test, Johansen Cointegration, Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) and Vector Autoregression (VAR). The results indicate that sectoral indices, specifically in technology sector, have long run cointegration with macroeconomic variable as resulted from the analysis of Johansen-Juselius (1990), Multivariate Cointegration and Vector Error Correction Model. Meanwhile, the short run cointegration between macroeconomic variable and several sectoral indices have also been observed in Bursa Malaysia.

Capital structure selection is fundamentally important in corporate financial management as it influence on mutually return and risk to stakeholders. Despite of Malaysia's position as one of the major players of Islamic Financial Market, there are still lack of studies has been conducted on the capital structure of shariah compliant firms especially related to hybrid securities. The objective of this study is to determine the hybrid securities issuance model among the shariah compliant firms in Malaysia. As such, this study is to expand the literature review by providing comprehensive analysis on the hybrid capital structure and to develop dynamic Islamic hybrid securities model for shariah compliant firms. We use panel data of 50 companies that have been issuing the hybrid securities from the year of 2004-2012. The outcomes of the studies are based on the dynamic model GMM estimation for the determinants of hybrid securities. Based on our model, risk and growth are considered as the most determinant factors for issuing convertible bond and loan stock. These results suggest that, the firms that have high risk but having good growth prospect will choose hybrid securities of convertible bond. The model also support the backdoor equity listing hypothesis by Stein (1992) where the hybrid securities enable the profitable firms to venture into positive NPV project by issuing convertible bond as it offer lower coupon rate as compare to the normal debt rate

In 2006, the Malaysian government implemented a sustainable and comprehensive microfinance institutional framework. Since then, many of the jinancial institutions have laun ched microjinance products. The Islamic finance as such can flourish in the Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and the microfinance sector since financing in Islam involves the real economy. The Islamic financing which is based on Shari'ah differs in its spirit and motivation as compared to the conventional one. This paper, attempts to explore the Islamic Guarantee Schemes services as provided by the Credit Guarant ee Corporation (CGC). What are the factors that could lead the SMEs to go for Islamic Guarantee Schemes and what are their perceptions and knowledge of Islamic financing? The data set utilized in this study has been obtained via a selfadministered questionnaire, based on samples of 125 CGC's clients. Results of the survey postulated that many of the entrepreneurs were not aware of the existence of Islamic Guarantee Schemes, and their knowledge pertaining to the Shari 'ah principles of Islamic microfinancing is rather shallow. The results have important implications to the policy makers in strengthening the use of Islamic microfinancing among SMEs. The CGC also must work with a concerted effort with participating financial institutions to market these schemes to other entrepreneurs, who may be looking f or alternative modes of financing, which are Shari'ah compliant.

No abstract