Govt to unveil measures to ease middle-income group's burden

Posted on 4 September 2013 - 05:36am

Premalatha Jayaraman sunbiz@thesundaily.com 

KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 4, 2013): The government will announce measures to ease the burden of the middle income group in the upcoming Budget 2014, said Finance Ministry secretary-general Tan Sri Dr Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah, on concerns about rising costs of living.

The government had on Monday announced that retail prices of RON95 petrol and diesel would be raised by 20 sen each to RM2.10 and RM2, respectively, effective yesterday.

Irwan was speaking to reporters after officiating the 1Malaysia Entrepreneurs Bootcamp here yesterday.

"They (the measures) can be anything like providing assistance and so on. We are looking at it," he said.

Irwan pointed that the government had allocated RM24.8 billion of subsidy for fuel in 2013, which he said could be used for the well-being of the people and infrastructure development.

"(With the latest adjustment in prices of RON95 and diesel,) we are still subsidising (for fuel) and we will review (the subsidy) again in the future when the condition is suitable. So, we will think back what are the steps needed to be taken (in the future)," he said.

On the implementation of the goods and services tax (GST), Irwan said: "We will do public engagement if the GST is announced in the budget."

He said the fiscal policy committee usually will study the implication of certain things to the people and the country before making any announcements.

Meanwhile, Irwan said the government will continue to monitor the performance of Malaysian Airline System Bhd (MAS), but for now "things are moving in the right direction in terms of the number of passengers, destinations and buying new planes".

"MAS is doing good. Since its (latest) restructuring, it has been doing good and its operating profit is positive.

"Hopefully, things will improve further. If you look at its load factor, it is more than 80% and this is a good sign for MAS," he said.

The government has a 69.4% shareholding via Khazanah Nasional Bhd and a golden share in MAS.