KUALA LUMPUR: The government has unveiled eight economic packages worth RM530 billion in total to address the crisis ever since the COVID-19 pandemic was declared last year, Asia Analytica said.<\/p>\n
The research and institutional\u00a0services\u00a0said since then, however, many have expressed their grouses on insufficient\u00a0support given to the rakyat although the amount was huge.
\n\u201cMany have compared our schemes with\u00a0those in the United States, the United Kingdom or Singapore, which have been far more generous,\u201d it said\u00a0in a report published by The Edge Malaysia.
\nIt said to be fair, the government has entered the crisis on a weak financing footing,\u00a0following decades of financial scandals, overspending, over-borrowing and financial imprudence under previous governments.
\n\u201cWe have had so many financial scandals and weak fiscal management in the past that the country\u2019s financial resources had been severely sapped even before COVID-19 hit our shores,\u201d it said.
\nIt said\u00a0the government could not afford to spend aggressively like other countries with strong balance sheets as doing so would put the country\u2019s fiscal position, financial standing, currency and inflation, among others, at more risk of dire consequences.
\nAsia Analytica said the government debt grew 1.4 times faster than income, in which its debt and guarantees\u00a0grew at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10 per cent from\u00a02008 to 2020, outpacing nominal gross domestic product\u2019s CAGR of just 5.2 per cent.
\nThus, it said the government debt grew at twice the rate of its income during the\u00a0period.
\nNevertheless, it said the government has cleverly crafted a blanket country-wide, all-encompassing six-month loan moratorium from April to October 2020, for all individuals as well as big and small\u00a0businesses.
\nIt said the moratorium effectively restructure\u00a0the entire debt portfolio of all individuals and businesses in Malaysia, extending their obligations and providing a lifeline for individuals and businesses by providing much-needed liquidity to face a major unprecedented global crisis.
\n\u201cLiquidity and cash flows are the critical lifelines to help one ride through any crisis. Yes, detractors can argue that loans are only deferred and will still need to be repaid\u00a0and they don\u2019t address the loss in income,\u201d it said.
\nIt said\u00a0the two blanket loan moratoriums, six months under PRIHATIN and another six months under the National People\u2019s Well-Being and Economic Recovery\u00a0Package\u00a0(PEMULIH), are crucial\u00a0since Malaysian households are\u00a0highly indebted and most low-to-medium income households have minimal discretionary income left after loan repayments.
\nAsia Analytica said it estimated that a total of RM4,400 one-off grants have also been provided to households\u00a0as well as deferments of education loans, public housing rents and electricity rebates.
\n\u201cThe government has already given out a whopping RM83 billion in cash handouts. Giving out billions more\u00a0as some have demanded\u00a0may be popular and would help win elections but it would\u00a0be highly reckless and irresponsible,\u201d it said.
\nIt added that the strategy to restructure both corporate and individual debts via loan moratoriums was the more prudent and responsible route to take and has been effective in helping with cash flows for many in the past 16 months.
\n–BERNAMA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KUALA LUMPUR: The government has unveiled eight economic packages worth RM530 billion in total to address the crisis ever since the COVID-19 pandemic was declared last year, Asia Analytica said. The research and institutional\u00a0services\u00a0said since then, however, many have expressed their grouses on insufficient\u00a0support given to the rakyat although the amount was huge. \u201cMany have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":4751,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4750","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4750"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4752,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4750\/revisions\/4752"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}