Asian Tiger Return

SINGAPORE (July 28): Positive outlook from analysts and rating agencies, supported by encouraging economic figures, signals that Malaysia is making great strides to reclaim its ‘Asian Tiger’ status, said Finance Minister II Datuk Seri Amir Hamzah Azizan.

The minister, on a working visit to Singapore, said he has also received great feedback regarding Malaysia’s strong economic performance during meetings with investors and analysts, who expressed optimism about the country’s future growth.

“To reclaim the ‘Asian Tiger’ status is not a pipe dream. The government and I are very confident that we can achieve this.

“We are also seeing a lot of financial analysts out there, a lot of rating agencies, a lot of people that are acknowledging that Malaysia is fundamentally back (on track),” he told the Malaysian diaspora here on Friday night.

Amir Hamzah, who was on a two-day working visit to the island republic ending Saturday, was speaking at a dinner hosted by the High Commission of Malaysia in Singapore.

During the visit, the minister also attended an investor engagement session jointly arranged by CIMB, JPMorgan and UOB.

Amir Hamzah said the Madani government has succesfully maintained 21 months of stability after a series of changes in government and the Covid-19 pandemic, which halted the country’s economic progress.

He said that faced with a national debt of about RM1.5 trillion, the government has had to resort to some “difficult decisions for the right purpose”, such as targeted diesel and electricity subsidies to create more fiscal space for economic growth.

Amir Hamzah said that last year, the government’s total operating expenditure was RM311 billion, of which RM81 billion went towards social assistance and subsidy support while another 48% was spent on pensions, civil service remuneration and other liabilities.

“If you add in all other obligations that we have, we actually only have about 2 to 3% of spare (fiscal) space to manoeuvre around,” he said, highlighting the importance of reinventing the fiscal space in order to allow the government to spend more on infrastructure that could attract more businesses and rejuvenate the economy.

Meanwhile, Amir Hamzah said the Ministry of Finance (MOF) is currently collecting ideas and feedback from the public and interest groups as part of its preparatory works for Budget 2025, which will be tabled in Parliament on Oct 18.

According to him, the ministry is committed to listening to their ideas and concerns, which can be made through the Budget 2025 proposal section on the MOF website.

“I would encourage everybody to reach out and chip in their ideas for nation-building,” he told Bernama.