{"id":15088,"date":"2022-10-04T14:23:36","date_gmt":"2022-10-04T06:23:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=15088"},"modified":"2022-10-04T14:23:38","modified_gmt":"2022-10-04T06:23:38","slug":"malaysia-not-heading-towards-any-economic-crisis-says-tengku-zafrul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=15088","title":{"rendered":"Malaysia not heading towards any economic crisis, says Tengku Zafrul"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 4<\/strong> — The Finance Ministry has stressed that Malaysia is neither facing nor heading towards any economic or financial crisis despite being affected by challenges due to external factors beyond the government\u2019s control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its minister, Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz, said the country\u2019s economic situation today is far different from that during the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC) of 1997 and 1998.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe fundamentals of the economy and financial system are much different now,\u201d<\/em> he said during the Minister\u2019s Question Time session in the Dewan Rakyat today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is due to the various economic and financial reforms implemented following the AFC such as the diversifying\u00a0the structure of the domestic economy, supported by a well-capitalised financial system and strong external position, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"crisis\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

He was replying to Wong Hon Wai (DAP-Bukit Bendera) who wanted to know whether a financial crisis is forming following the ringgit\u2019s depreciation against the US dollar, rising inflation and growing federal government debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs an example, the country\u2019s current financial market is very open with high participation of foreign investors, and we have a current account surplus driven by diverse exports,\u201d<\/em> Tengku Zafrul\u00a0said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year\u2019s current account balance has remained positive with a RM3.0 billion surplus in the first quarter and RM4.4 billion in the second quarter, he noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also said the economy contracted by 7.4 per cent during the AFC, 1.5 per cent during the global financial crisis and 5.5 per cent at the peak of the COVID-19 crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo recap, our currency depreciated nearly 54 per cent in 1997, with the lowest rate of RM4.88\u00a0to the US dollar,\u201d<\/em> he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that the country had a current account deficit of over RM16.7 billion in 1997 and more than 102,000 people lost their jobs, while inflation surged to a high of 6.2 per cent in June 1998.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NMT<\/a> as reported by Bernama<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 4 — The Finance Ministry has stressed that Malaysia is neither facing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[524,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nation","category-politics"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screenshot-2022-07-19-at-1.12.25-PM.png",1178,654,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screenshot-2022-07-19-at-1.12.25-PM-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screenshot-2022-07-19-at-1.12.25-PM-300x167.png",300,167,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screenshot-2022-07-19-at-1.12.25-PM-768x426.png",640,355,true],"large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screenshot-2022-07-19-at-1.12.25-PM-1024x569.png",640,356,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screenshot-2022-07-19-at-1.12.25-PM.png",1178,654,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screenshot-2022-07-19-at-1.12.25-PM.png",1178,654,false],"newsium-slider-full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screenshot-2022-07-19-at-1.12.25-PM.png",1178,654,false],"newsium-featured":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screenshot-2022-07-19-at-1.12.25-PM.png",1024,569,false],"newsium-medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screenshot-2022-07-19-at-1.12.25-PM.png",720,400,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Editor"]},"category_info":"Nation<\/a> Politics<\/a>","tag_info":"Politics","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15088"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15089,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15088\/revisions\/15089"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}