KUALA LUMPUR – Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz says the economy’s structural issues cannot be solved overnight.
The finance minister says Putrajaya has started working on Budget 2022 to address this, while rolling out Budget 2021.
Referring to Budget 2022 and the 12th Malaysia Plan (12MP), Tengku Zafrul said these structural issues require deeper consideration and longer-term planning.
“The government has started working on fresh ideas for Budget 2022 even as we roll out Budget 2021 measures and the Finance Ministry is looking at these ideas in a more holistic manner,” he told the Bursa Malaysia Forum on BernamaTV today.
Tengku Zafrul said the upcoming 12MP, for the 2021-2025 period, and Budget 2022 would address issues including human capital policies and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“We need to revamp Malaysia’s human capital policies, whereby, for instance, a Malaysian graduate is happy to work as a waiter at a restaurant in a neighbouring country because of the higher pay, while jobs that are considered dirty, dangerous and difficult were done by foreign workers here,” he elaborated in the programme, themed “Menang Bersama: Rebuilding Malaysia’s Economy Together”.
He said the situation reflected serious issues around underemployment, which could be due to lower wages for graduates, which in turn could be due to wage increases not being on par with productivity, or the increase in skills, and an industry-education system mismatch.
Meanwhile, Tengku Zafrul said the Covid-19 pandemic and floods across the country have highlighted the need to develop a more resilient economy.
“Perhaps GLCs need to also have SDG-related key performance indexes (KPIs), apart from their quantitative KPI,” he added.
On the country’s shadow economy, Tengku Zafrul said the government would also strengthen the country’s revenue base via a multi-pronged strategy through regulating the shadow economy. – Bernama, February 2, 2021
