Budget 2023: Malaysia banks on strong fundamentals
Published on: Friday, October 07, 2022
By: Bernama
Based on the 2023 Pre-Budget Statement released in June themed “Strengthening recovery, facilitating reforms towards sustainable socio-economic resilience of Keluarga Malaysia”, the 2023 budget would be formulated based on three priority areas.
Kuala Lumpur: Riding on solid economic fundamentals and steady growth thus far in 2022, Malaysia is set to transition from recovery strategies to structural reforms to strengthen its economic resilience and improve people’s wellbeing through Budget 2023.At the same time, the country must keep on its toes amid external challenges mainly coming from China, the United States (US) and the United Kingdom.
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Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz remarked that Malaysia’s economic growth may even surpass the official forecast of between 5.3 and 6.3 per cent in 2022 as the country saw faster growth in the second quarter at 8.9 per cent and a strong performance is expected in the third quarter.
However, he also warned that Malaysia will not be spared from the expected global economic slowdown in 2023, as all three of the world’s major economic drivers — Europe, China and the US — are expected to grow at a slower rate next year compared with this year.
The International Monetary Fund has cut its global growth projection for 2022 to 3.2 per cent before slowing further to 2.9 per cent in 2023.
The revisions mark a downgrade of 0.4 and 0.7 percentage points, respectively, from its earlier projections amid uncertainties such as fallout from the war in Ukraine and rising inflation.
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“As such, the country must be prepared to do what needs to be done to mitigate the anticipated impact from the economic slowdowns the world over,” he said recently.
Hence, reform has been among the key factors that have been emphasised going forward.
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Based on the 2023 Pre-Budget Statement released in June themed “Strengthening recovery, facilitating reforms towards sustainable socio-economic resilience of Keluarga Malaysia”, the 2023 budget would be formulated based on three priority areas.
These are reinforcing the momentum of economic recovery, strengthening economic resilience against future shocks and implementing comprehensive reforms in the economic and social aspects for businesses, priority sectors and the nation.
Budget 2022 worth RM332.1 billion that was tabled on Oct 29, 2021, has benefited mostly the Education Ministry which received highest ever allocation of RM52.6 billion, followed by the Health Ministry with RM32.4 billion and Higher Education Ministry with RM14.5 billion.
In the Pre-Budget Statement, the Ministry also stressed on the need to implement targeted assistance under Budget 2023. Particularly, cash assistance programmes as well as fuel subsidies would be improved via more effective distribution mechanisms.
Budget 2023 is also expected to focus on education and healthcare.
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