KUALA LUMPUR (July 29): The federal government plans to table a motion to lift the statutory debt ceiling in the next parliamentary sitting session, said Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Aziz today.
Speaking at the Dewan Rakyat special meeting this morning, Tengku Zafrul said Malaysia’s statutory debt level stood at 56.8% to GDP, relative to the statutory debt ceiling of 60%.
“With limited fiscal space, the government has no choice but to optimise existing financial resources through rationalisation of spending, sourcing additional revenue from the government’s ecosystem including the utilisation of National Trust Fund (KWAN) as well as the readiness to increase the ceiling for the Covid-19 Fund (KWC-19),” he said.
“Concurrently the government is ready to relax the debt restrictions to support the economic recovery plan taking into account the indebtedness ability of the nation.
“As such, the government will file a motion in this Dewan for the amendment in the next session,” Tengku Zafrul said.
Putrajaya has introduced eight stimulus packages since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic totalling RM530 billion, inclusive of fiscal injection totalling around RM83 billion.
This includes the establishment of the Covid-19 Fund, where a total of RM55 billion has been spent, of which RM38 billion was utilised last year, the minister said.
The next Dewan Rakyat sitting under the fourth session of the 14th Parliament is scheduled from Sept 6 to 30, 2021.
During the special meeting, Tengku Zafrul also reiterated that the government expects a lower GDP growth estimate for the year 2021 compared with the initial forecast of 6%-7.5% following the reimplementation of the Movement Control Order (MCO) this year.
"With the implementation of the MCO 3.0 recently, the nation experienced a GDP loss of around RM1.1 billion per day, compared with RM2.4 billion a day during the full MCO in March," he said.
"An official revision will be announced in August together with the official second quarter (2Q2021) GDP data release where the impact of MCO and the implementation of the National Recovery Plan (NRP) on the economy in the first half of the year can be seen in full," he said.