Friday 29 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (July 10): The Socio-Economic Research Centre (SERC) will be meeting the Ministry of Finance (MoF) on Thursday (July 12) to put forward its wishlist for the upcoming Budget 2019.

Speaking at a media briefing today, its executive director Lee Heng Guie said the think-tank will discuss with the ministry, the rising cost of doing business and cost of living in the country.

“We hope it (the meeting) will be comprehensive and covers as many aspects as possible. In terms of priority, it will be the cost of doing business and cost of living.

“They (government) need to have initiatives to sustain domestic consumption demand, while maintaining prices at reasonable level,” he added.

Lee also outlined SERC's five-pronged agenda for the government to achieve growth and efficiency, while increasing national income by leveraging on the country’s capabilities, innovation and productivity.

He said the first part is that Putrajaya must uphold fiscal discipline and that government debt, including contingent liabilities, must be controlled and reduced over time to achieve fiscal and debt stability.

The second is to improve business environment for investment, by creating necessary conditions for sustainable investment growth to restore investor confidence and address competitiveness.

Lee said his team has done a comparison on the ease of doing business in Malaysia between 2014 and 2016, and found that the number of procedures and days to start a business increased from three procedures and three days in 2014, to 8.5 procedures and 18.5 days in 2016.

In terms of border compliance, Lee said it took 20 hours for exports and 24 hours for imports back in 2014, but the situation in 2016 had worsened to 45 hours for exports and 69 hours for imports.

Lee said the third is for the government to have policies to catalyse Industrial Revolution 4.0 and digital economy, while keeping the cost of doing business at reasonable levels is the fourth part.

Lee said the government can establish a joint government-industry body to develop design-led manufacturing programmes, with ICT-enabled design skills in focus.

Lastly, he said Malaysia should create a local market for skills, linking skills with employment opportunities, while decent compensation is critical.

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