As the country steps into October after 9 months of uncertainty from the on going war against Covid-19, the severe impact on businesses and society of lockdowns and the revolving doors of governments, a glimmer of semblance returns as case numbers dip and vaccination rate increases.
October is also the month the Ministry of Finance tables its budget with the main agenda being ‘Recovery’ the public expects a strong and definite Budget 2022 that will see country through this difficult period. Finance Minister, Tengku Zafrul has indicated the sectors focused will be tourism, retail and small medium enterprises. He added that the government is optimistic that the country’s economy will recover next year in line with the positive growth projections made by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank for 2022.
Undoubtedly the three sectors he pointed out are in dire states, tourism which was the first to shut when the virus was detected has been the last to reopen and even that with precautionary steps. AirAsia the low cost carrier is struggling to pay debts and its sister operation AirAsia X is trading at 0.08 cents at the moment with no light at the end of tunnel situation.
Retail is slowly seeing the return of consumers but the supply chain disruption endured is triggering all sorts of problems, it estimated more than 30% of F&B and other variety of shops have closed due to the pandemic. Despite stimulus packages and aids presented by the Government, SME’s have struggled the most. Malaysia’s economy is highly dependent on this sector with estimation of over 38% to GDP, and there is no way we can let this sector fail.
The Minister has admitted that in this budget the attention and assistance will be to all sectors including the most badly affected sectors, which are tourism, retail and SME.
According to MOF reports Malaysia’s Gross Domestic Product is expected to grow between 3% and 4%, while the IMF and World Bank are forecasting a 5% to 6% growth for 2022.
Budget 2022 will be tabled on October 29, all eyes will be on the new Prime Minister and his cabinet that has embraced the ‘One Family’ principle on the first budget by the 2 month old team.
