By Sathish Govind
The government’s immediate priority going forward in 2022 would be to immediately contain the threat of the Omicron virus and restore the damage from the floods, an economist said today.
Dr Yeah Kim Leng, professor of economics at Sunway University told Business Today that the vaccination rates were almost 100% and there was no reason to have shut down again as efforts must be made to ensure that the economy continues to hum along
In addition, Yeah said it was important that assistance to flood victims be extended soon so that they can immediately restart their lives and start contributing to the economy.
“The Economy had to be stalled for a while and it has just started humming and it is paramount that momentum in the economy is sustained, and the present efforts are not in any way derailed,” Yeah said.
Dr Yeah said that policymakers had to ensure the pace of recovery continued and the government was moving on full throttle, and it had to make sure that it needed to continue to spur domestic and foreign direct investments which are important for growth.
“Unemployment levels have been high due to the pandemic and regressive steps towards stalling the economy would only exacerbate the present economic woes,“ he said.
Another challenge was to contain the inflation and the spiraling prices which requires the government to tackle through direct government intervention in supply chain factors and increasing the supply of inputs.
He said that the government must look towards dismantling the many barriers such as breaking the cartels to ensure that the prices are contained particularly prices of necessities which affects the lower-income groups.
Yeah also said that the government must also ensure that subsidies to farmers and producers are increased which would allow for prices to be stabilized.
