ABSTRACT
Had this book been written thirty years ago, this chapter would be about tin, not petroleum. Oil was discovered in Malaysia in the late 1800s, but its economic contribution remained insignificant compared to tin's, and that of most other nonrenewable resources as well, until the 1970s. The First Malaysia Plan 1966–70 listed tin, iron ore, bauxite, and gold as the country's “minerals of importance” (pp. 127–128). The Plan‘s forecast for nonrenewable resources was pessimistic—“The overall picture for the mining sector, at least in the short run, is … quite bleak” (p. 128)—although it tempered this view by noting that discoveries of new deposits could change the situation. By the Second Malaysia Plan 1971–75, oil was listed as one of the country's top four mineral resources, but it still ranked behind tin, iron ore, and bauxite. In 1970, oil's shares of GDP and export earnings were only 1 percent and 4 percent, respectively, compared to 4 percent and 20 percent for tin.
