Yeah Kim Leng, a professor of economics at Sunway University, said companies in such sectors were likely to face the worst types of disruption in the face of digitalisation and would need to restructure their business models to survive.
“Those who resist change and those who do not improve and upgrade their skills will not survive,” he told FMT.
He noted that the media industry was already suffering but said the worst might be yet to come as companies cut their spending on advertising.
“Media companies will need to know their target markets, look at Google Analytics, venture into technology to reach more readers and ensure improvement in their employees’ skills,” he said.
Yeah spoke of the retail sector as facing one of its most challenging periods in history. The only way retailers could survive, he said, would be by going into e-commerce.
Referring to banks, he said those that were not embracing financial technology might see their growth stunted.
He mentioned the hotel and property sectors as also being under threat.
However, macro analyst Hoo Ke Ping said he believed the property sector would not crash although it might face a slowing down of business due to uncertainties in the job market.
“The saving grace here is the low interest rate,” he said. “As long as their monthly costs do not go up, house buyers will continue to service their loans.”
But he agreed that the hotel sector might suffer, saying it was likely that occupancy rates would drop with a reduction in the number of tourists.
“People from China, Taiwan, India, Japan and Europe may not be doing much travel due to the economy,” he said.
Hoo made a positive forecast for exports to the US, saying the expected resilience of the US economy would ensure customers in that country would continue to buy from Malaysia.
A former World Bank economist, Lim Teck Ghee, noted that the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank had forecast that Malaysia would maintain its GDP growth at between 4.5% and 4.6% this year and next year.
However, he cautioned against wild cards in internal and external factors, such as the worsening of the US-China trade conflict, which he said would have adverse effects on global and regional markets.
“I am not so optimistic that we can be a beneficiary from the ripple effects of this conflict as other observers have been quick to predict,” he said.
Lim also said business and investor confidence would depend on the political situation and the fallout from racial and religious tensions.
“The Zakir Naik issue, for example, if unresolved will damage our business ties with India, which is among our biggest export markets,” he added.
He criticised the government for its alleged unwillingness to “bite the bullet on the key actions necessary to reform the civil service”, saying this might have an effect on the economy.