KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 4): The Socio-Economic Research Centre (SERC) has revised its forecast of Malaysia s gross domestic product (GDP) growth to 4% for 2021 from 5% previously to account for the current Movement Control Order (MCO), which was reimposed on Jan 13.
SERC executive director Lee Heng Guie said the revision of the country s GDP projection was made for the sanctions placed until Feb 4. For now I am sticking to my 4% GDP growth target. So far it is the lowest compared to the market consensus, so I hope the GDP number for 2021 will not be that low, he said in a virtual media briefing.
Compared to the consensus, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is projecting Malaysia s economy to rebound by 7% in 2021, while the World Bank is forecasting Malaysia s economy to grow by 6.7% in 2021 after contracting by 5.8% in 2020.
SERC lowers baseline estimate for Malaysia’s 2021 GDP growth to 4% 04 Feb 2021 / 22:46 H. SERC believes Budget 2022 will be a good time to bring up the idea of reintroducing the Goods and Services Tax. – BERNAMAPIX
PETALING JAYA: The Socio-Economic Research Centre (SERC) has reduced its baseline estimate for Malaysia’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth to 4% for 2021, from an earlier projection of 5% to reflect the reintroduction of the movement control order (MCO 2.0).
Its executive chairman Lee Heng Guie elaborated that the mark-down in the estimate was made for the movement restriction placed until Feb 4, but even with the extension of the order until Feb 18, the research house will not make further cuts to its estimate.
The World Bank Group’s country manager for Malaysia Firas Raad recently said that Malaysia may follow the path of Japan towards an ageing society.
THE slightly longer lifespan of Malaysians today has recently brought about the debate of whether a higher retirement age should be pursued as an official policy.
While this observation is prevalent, there are concerns on the other end of this argument that officially allowing higher retirement ages may hinder employment opportunities for those who are new to the workforce.
About eight years ago, the official retirement age in Malaysia was raised to 60.
Today, it is also not uncommon to find workers in some companies here who are still employed beyond this official retirement age.
WHILE the rollout of the Social Security Organisation’s (Socso) Wage Subsidy Programme (WSP) 3.0 as part of the Permai Assistance Package has been a much needed boost for employers, the reality is that companies are going to need sustainable measures to keep their operations and employees afloat. Economists have projected a high rate of unemployment this year and are hoping the government will take new approaches to tackle the issue.
Ringgit chart
PETALING JAYA: The ringgit emerged as Asean’s third-best performing currency in 2020, after it managed to stage a sharp recovery from last year’s weakest level of RM4.45 per US dollar to end the year at RM4.02.
Economists believe that the ringgit’s uptrend would extend into 2021, partly owing to the continued weakening of the world’s reserve currency.
In fact, there are possibilities for the local currency to enter the range of just below RM4 per US dollar by year-end, marking the first time since June 2018.
While economists have cautioned that there may be some pullback in the near term, as evident from the ringgit’s slight depreciation year-to-date, they believe that conditions would likely improve in the second half of the year.