By: Ramesh Chander, Murray Hunter, and Lim Teck Ghee It’s what’s in the fine print Various excuses can be made for Malaysia’s 2023 budget – mainly status quo ante, part recovery, and part election-oriented– produced by the new government, which is kicking the can of fiscal and institutional reform further down the road. In his budget presentation, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, also the Finance Minister, asked: “the question is whether there is political will to effect change” to what he diagnosed as the challenges facing the nation: high debt levels, low quality of administration, global uncertainties, slow investment recovery, and Rakyat economic woes. However, Anwar’s administration had fewer than 90 days after coming to office to produce the new budget. In addition, he crafted the budget with looming state elections in mind, so perhaps it is not surprising that the rhetoric of change and reform has largely remained rhetoric. The first part of our commentary before the budget presentation (see “ My Say: Case for a Reformist Budget 2023 ”) was to stress the need to tackle long-overdue reforms such as restructuring the economy, reforming the tax regime, and reforming the Employee Retirement Fund. However, it is clear that […]
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