M’sia’s Economy is Strong Despite RM1 Trillion Debt, Assures Guan Eng

A few days back, we learnt from our beloved Prime Minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Muhamad and our fiery Finance Minister, Lim Guan Eng that our country has a debt worth RM1 trillion and that the condition of our revenue is bad.

Nonetheless, Lim shared today (25 May 2018) that he believes the Malaysian economy (as a whole) is still secure “with solid fundamentals” despite the urgent need to recover our revenues, according to The Star. 

Source: the star

He made this statement when a journalist asked about the government’s solutions to restore investors’ confidence after publicly announcing that the current debt-to-GDP ratio is at 80 per cent.

“In the financial sector, our capitalisation is high, non-performing loans are low and liquidity in the fund market is high. The fundamentals are there but we need to improve the fiscal condition.”

“I’m confident that after we resolve the fiscal condition, we will be even stronger.”

Source: my newshub

Lately, Lim had been receiving a lot of flak for announcing the nation’s financial condition publicly. Criticising his approach was Bloomberg’s columnist Andy Mukherjee, who said that Lim’s approach was “blunt” and is risking “leaving investors with an uncertain fiscal outlook”. Maybe Malaysians prefer him to be blunt? 

Two days back, Bursa Malaysia hadn’t been doing great because foreign funds had resumed the “selldown of local equity”. Due to that, the FBM KLCI recorded a reduction of 69 points (3.7%) over two sessions, which erased its profits for this year (2018).

However, Lim pointed out that Malaysia’s equity market isn’t the only one that was pulled back, but other stock exchanges too. He said that the stock exchanges in the region had been experiencing a pullback because of external factors. Listen to the expert, guys!

Source: the malay mail

“Whether this [transparency] is a cause is up to the stock market to determine. It is not only in Malaysia that the stock market has fallen. Look at Thailand, the US and other countries. There are other international factors. Let the stock brokers and analysts see if this is only in Malaysia or regionally and globally.”

“We have to be truthful and transparent. If by being transparent we will be punished then there’s nothing we can do about it. We will still continue to be transparent,” explained Lim.

True, Malaysians would definitely prefer a transparent government, so we can work together and solve the country’s problems! 

Well, it looks like we have nothing to worry about when it comes to our economy because it’s stable despite the debts and less income. Hopefully, the Ministry of Finance will come up with ways to pay off our debts and increase our revenue in the long run.

Also read: Tun M: “Malaysia Is Actually RM1 Trillion in Debt Thanks to The Previous Govt”