Azmin: Striking balance between fiscal discipline, boosting economy

KUALA LUMPUR: The government is able to balance fiscal discipline and generating a strong economic growth in the 2019 Budget, says Economic Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali.

He said the initiatives and efforts introduced in the Budget had shown the government’s concern about the well-being of the people and Bottom 40 per cent (B40) as well as Middle 40 ( M40) income groups even at a time when the fiscal position was very tight.

“With these efforts, it is hoped that we could help these household income groups face the economic challenges. Following this, it can generate economic activities and increase the country’s revenue,” he said to reporters at Parliament lobby after the tabling of the 2019 Budget by Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng yesterday.

Lim said the government had restructured the budget approach through zero-based budgeting – a system based on zero-budget to improve effectiveness, greater efficiency and higher costsavings.

Apart from that, Lim also said the fiscal deficit in 2018 was expected to rise to 3.7 per cent due to previous government’s expenditure commitment, which was unbudgeted such as the interest-servicing cost of 1Malaysia Development Bhd amounting to RM1 billion.

“For the next three years, the PH government is committed to maintaining fiscal consolidation measures to reduce the deficit to 3.4 per cent of gross domestic product in 2019, three per cent in 2020 and 2.8 per cent in 2021,” Lim said. — Bernama