Professor Mahendhiran Nair, Economics Professor, Monash University

01-Jul-20 07:47

Now that the MCO has been lifted and people are returning to the daily grind, businesses are hopeful that people will start spending again. And it’s a sentiment shared by Minister in the Prime Minister's Department for Economic Affairs, Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed.

Earlier this week in an op-ed he wrote, he called on Malaysians to start spending in order to help our economy, and according to some numbers out of the Statistics Department, 90% of workers have returned to work but retail performance is only at 30% of pre-MCO levels.

Now there are many reasons for this as the pandemic has left some jobless or having to take massive pay cuts, and those life-changing events are hard to bounce back from. So how do we rebuild confidence and help revive the economy under challenging circumstances?