GST can save country during economic downturn — Najib

PUTRAJAYA: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the Goods and Services Tax can save the country during an economic downturn.

Najib, who is also the Finance Minister, said the GST was introduced not to burden the people but to be a national economic saviour.

Speaking at the 36th World Customs Day 2018 celebration here yesterday, he said the GST provided a platform to strengthen the financial resources of the government.

He said the government could fulfill the aspirations of the people and carry out public programmes if it had stable and growing financial resources.

"Without the GST, we would not have been confident of making the special payments to civil servants. (Without the GST), who knows, we may have succumbed to the recession,” he said. The six percent GST was introduced on April 1, 2015.

Najib said the government did not propose to raise the GST rate.

Najib also said Malaysia's GST rate was the lowest in the world and the number of exempted or zero-rated goods and services was probably the highest in the world.

He said the government's decision to implement the GST was apt because it was a source of finance that would enable the government to implement various programmes for the benefit of the people.