He said it has been barely two years since the GST was implemented and the government wants the people to get used to it.
“There will be no changes for now as we want the GST to be embedded in the entire consumer spending,” he told reporters after delivering a speech at the Khazanah Megatrends Forum 2016.
He was responding to a question from reporters, if Putrajaya had any plans to reduce or abolish GST to stimulate consumer spending, and in turn, national growth.
Johari said the government is investing heavily on rail projects, such as the Klang Valley’s MRT, LRT projects and high speed rail connecting Kuala Lumpur to Singapore and the Pan Borneo highway connecting Sabah and Sarawak with Brunei.
“We use these infrastructure projects to stimulate the economy. In total, the government is looking at an overall investment of more than RM150 billion in all these projects.
“We stimulate the economy for the future generation. Our generation might not be able to use these facilities but our future generations will,” he said.
During the speech, Johari also defended the government’s 1Malaysia People’s Aid (BR1M) payments as an instrument to help the lower income group, which has come to be known as the “B40” (or “Bottom 40 per cent”) group.
He said it has helped the lower income group to cushion the impact of the GST and at the same time, also stimulated spending.
Citing a study by Khazanah Research Institute, he said BR1M has seen the income of the B40 group having grown the fastest when compared with the middle 40 per cent and top 20 per cent from 1979 to 2014.
“Addressing the welfare of the rakyat in the short term is neccessary to ensure we have a stable foundation to build on,” he added.
The GST was first announced in the 2014 Budget speech by Prime Minister Najib Razak, who is also Finance Minister I, in October 2013. Najib had stated then that the government would implement a GST rate of six per cent, effective from April 1, 2015, giving the relevant authorities and businesses at least 18 months to prepare for the implementation.