KUALA LUMPUR (April 12): Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak claimed that according to some, his Cabinet reshuffle on July 28, 2015 had aided the world's longest bull market to continue at Bursa Malaysia.

In his keynote address at Invest Malaysia 2016 here today, Najib said such stock market sentiment showed that investors viewed "strong leadership, political stability and a credible economic plan" as crucial criteria for their investments.

"It's very clear that the markets like strong leadership, political stability and a credible economic plan. Now I know that there are some who would like you to think that our economy is in trouble.

"Some who, against their own principles, even asked for foreign intervention! Some who ought to know better have been talking Malaysia down. Indeed, they do know better. Malaysia is sustainable at the core. Because the facts — including those that I have just outlined to you — are indisputable," Najib said.

Najib, who is also finance minister, also took the opportunity to mention that the ringgit had rebounded strongly against the US dollar.

At 1:40pm, the ringgit was trading at 3.8888 against the US dollar.

The intraday range was between 3.8735 and 3.8930.

Over the last one year, the exchange rate was between 3.5388 and 4.4812.

Today, Najib said: "The ringgit is Asia's best performing currency this year to date. This may surprise my political opponents, who said that if I continued in my job the ringgit would fall to 4.80 to the dollar. Now it's 3.88 to the dollar!"

"As Bloomberg reported just under two weeks ago, overseas inflows into Malaysia are the biggest in Southeast Asia and Kuala Lumpur has the lowest volatility among the region's markets," he said.