“They will receive other forms of assistance from the government in order to improve the industries’ structure and operations,” he told reporters after an event here.

Rafizi added that direct subsidies did not help much in addressing the challenges faced by companies as it only served as a temporary solution.

“Our approach now is to move away from merely giving financial injections, which changes nothing. We are more inclined to cooperate with the industries so that the form of assistance is able to strengthen their competitiveness.

“For instance, for industries that depend on gas, rather than subsidising gas for them, we would encourage them to switch their reliance from this source of energy to biomass.”

According to Rafizi, this policy has been introduced to certain sectors and will be expanded to others in the near future. However, he did not elaborate as to which sectors this has affected or will affect.

“We have discussed the matter with certain industries. If there are other industries affected, when they meet us, we will give them the same message.

“We are open to working with them but any form of assistance must be structural in nature,” he said.

In February, World Bank lead economist for Malaysia Apurva Sanghi said the government must use the window of opportunity presented by downward price trends to pursue reforms to its far-reaching subsidy programmes.

Apurva said measures must be taken simultaneously to widen the government’s revenue base while reducing expenditure.

He said the transition from blanket to targeted subsidies should be done in a gradual manner with safeguards in place to ensure it does not lead to inflationary effects.

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