Late last year his government announced that it was putting up $132 million to start a venture-capital fund. Uncharacteristically, officials said that they were looking for outsiders to manage 40 percent of the fund and they would allow some of the money to go for non-Malaysian ventures. Managers from the United States began forgetting their prejudices against Mahathir’s insular mentality and put in bids.
With results of the bidding due to be announced this month, Malaysia’s semiofficial press is not inspiring confidence. Foreign managers, it says, will be required to maintain a “significant presence” in the country. The price of managing this fund, which is paltry by international standards, keeps going up.
