SINGAPORE: Malaysia is making great strides to reclaim its Asian Tiger status, says Datuk Seri Amir Hamzah Azizan.

The Finance Minister II said this was due to the positive outlook from analysts and rating agencies, supported by encouraging economic figures.

The minister, who was on a working visit to Singapore, said he had also received positive feedback on Malaysia’s strong economic performance during meetings with investors and analysts, who expressed optimism about the country’s future growth.

“To reclaim the Asian Tiger status is not a pipe dream. The government and I are very confident that we can achieve this.

“We are also seeing a lot of financial analysts out there, a lot of rating agencies, a lot of people who acknowledge that Malaysia is fundamentally back (on track),” he told the Malaysian diaspora here on Friday night, Bernama reported.

Amir Hamzah, who was on a two-day working visit to the island republic that ended on Saturday, was speaking at a dinner hosted by the High Commission of Malaysia in Singapore.

During the visit, the minister also attended an investor engagement session jointly arranged by CIMB, JP Morgan and UOB.

Amir Hamzah said the government had successfully maintained 21 months of stability so far following a series of changes in government and the Covid-19 pandemic, which halted the country’s economic progress.

Faced with a national debt of about RM1.5 trillion, the government had to resort to some “difficult decisions for the right purpose” such as targeted diesel and electricity subsidies to create more fiscal space for economic growth, he added.

Amir Hamzah noted that last year, the government’s total operating expenditure was RM311bil, of which RM81bil went towards social assistance and subsidy support.

He said another 48% was spent on pensions, civil service remuneration and other liabilities.

“If you add in all other obligations that we have, we only have about 2% to 3% of spare (fiscal) space to manoeuvre around,” he added.

He highlighted the importance of reinventing the fiscal space to allow the government to spend more on infrastructure that could attract more businesses and rejuvenate the economy.

Meanwhile, Amir Hamzah said the Finance Ministry was collecting ideas and feedback from the rakyat and interest groups as part of its preparatory works for Budget 2025, which would be tabled in Parliament on Oct 18.

He said the ministry was committed to listening to their innovative ideas and concerns, which could be made through the Budget 2025 Proposal section of its website.

“I encourage everybody to reach out and chip in ideas for nation-building,” he said.

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2024/07/29/malaysia-making-great-strides-to-reclaim-asian-tiger-status