Tengku Zafrul: Malaysia able to manage price pressures, still room in fiscal space

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 5 2022 — Malaysia still has some fiscal space to manage the challenges of price pressures given the country’s debt to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio is at 60 per cent.

Finance minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz said as the government has increased the statutory debt ceiling limit to 65 per cent of GDP from 60 per cent previously while maintaining the deficit target at six per cent of GDP, there is still room in the fiscal space.

“We have inflation under control relative to our neighbours and what we see in the rest of the world. Inflation is forecast to be between 2.2 per cent to 3.2 per cent.

“In fact, inflation was around 2.5 per cent in the first six months of the year, and that was largely due to the large subsidy we introduced. We are forecasting it (subsidy) to be around RM80 billion; that is close to US$20 billion,” he said in a recent interview on Cable News Network (CNN).

He noted that fuel is subsidised, among other things. The government subsidises about 40 sen per litre for petroleum, with RON95 being one of the cheapest in the world in Malaysia.

Tengku Zafrul said Malaysia benefits from stronger commodity prices, especially oil, as a commodity export country, with Brent crude currently slightly below US$100 per barrel. In the country’s budget, the oil price was assumed at US$66 per barrel.

“Had we not implemented them (subsidies), (as) our Department of Statistics said, our inflation could be around 11 per cent,” he said.

Tengku Zafrul further said that the government is not planning to reduce subsidies this year as the country is slowly recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.

He noted that the pandemic had really impacted the baseline of the economy and the resumption of economic activities has resulted in a strong first quarter GDP growth of five per cent with the second quarter likely to be stronger this year.

Tengku Zafrul also said that although the provision of subsidies does help the economy in the short and medium term, it is not sustainable to continue this over a longer term. Thus, the government is looking into more targeted subsidies.

“Today, it is a blanket subsidy. Everyone gets it. Those in the top 20 per cent enjoy the same amount of subsidy as the bottom 40 per cent of our population.