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 said at a dinner hosted by the Malaysian high commission here on Friday night.
The minister also attended an investor engagement session jointly arranged by CIMB, JP Morgan and UOB.
Amir said the unity government has successfully maintained 21 months of stability after a series of changes in government and the Covid-19 pandemic had halted the country’s economic progress.
Faced with a national debt of about RM1.5 trillion, he said the government has 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.
According to Amir, last year, the government’s total operating expenditure was RM311 billion, of which RM81 billion went towards social assistance and subsidy support while 48% was spent on pensions, civil service remuneration, and other liabilities.
“If you add in all other obligations that we have, we only have about 2-3% of spare (fiscal) space to manoeuvre around,” he said, highlighting the importance of reinventing the fiscal space to allow the government to spend more on infrastructure that could attract more businesses and rejuvenate the economy.
On a separate matter, Amir said the finance ministry is currently collecting ideas and feedback from the rakyat and interest groups as part of its preparatory works for Budget 2025, which will be tabled in the Dewan Rakyat on Oct 18.
“The ministry is committed to listening to innovative ideas and concerns, which can be made through the Budget 2025 Proposal section of the finance ministry website.
“I would encourage everybody to reach out and chip in their ideas for nation-building,” he told Bernama.