KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 14): Kenanga IB Research said Budget 2020 turned out to be mostly positive for corporate Malaysia.

In a strategy note today, the research house said with the exception of an increase in minimum wage in major cities, affecting city-based low-skilled labour intensive businesses, most measures announced were business and people friendly.

It said the clear sector winners are Technology, Consumer, and Property. Technology gains because of generous grant incentives for digitalisation of SMEs operations coupled with 10-year tax exemptions for selected E&E companies, incentive for adoption of e-Wallet and extended period of capital allowances for automation initiatives.

The research house said consumer gains from measures to boost employment, Visit Malaysia Year 2020 and goodies in the form of BSH to lower income groups and special payments to those in the civil service by year-end.

Kenanga IB said property, because of the introduction of Rent-to-Own financing scheme and lowering of the threshold on high rise property for foreign ownership from RM1 million to RM600,000.

“We see banks benefitting too from measures to support SMEs and the property sector.

“We make no changes to earnings forecasts and but raised our sector call on Property from Neutral to Overweight as prices of many stocks in the sector have fallen well below the respective target prices,” it said.