CYBERJAYA, Feb 17 (NNN-BERNAMA) —\u00a0Malaysia’s upcoming economic stimulus package, which would be announced next week, would serve to mitigate the financial impact of Covid-19\u00a0and help industries rebound when the outbreak is contained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said Malaysia is among the earliest to launch the package even though the impact of the outbreak has yet to be ascertained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe announcement which would be made by Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad showed that the government places emphasis and priorities on the challenges posed by the outbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis also shows we are taking urgent steps to adjust to the situation,\u201d he told reporters after the launch of a RM500 million grant programme for the digitalisation of small and medium enterprises here today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The stimulus package is expected to be announced on Feb 27.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lim\u00a0viewed the challenges posed by Covid-19 as temporary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On measures to be introduced in\u00a0the stimulus package, he said they\u00a0would be as encompassing as possible for the affected sectors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur focus is first on the affected sectors, and to ensure that they are still around, functional, operational and able to reap the benefits from the rebound, while maintaining investor confidence in our economy. This is what the package is designed to do,\u201d Lim said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, he said the government would only render assistance to mitigate the adverse impacts posed by Covid-19 but not to reimburse the losses fully as they were the risks businesses had to face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said the Ministry of Finance (MoF) has had a lot of engagements with all industries and sectors, and was still evaluating the proposals and assistance required, subject to the country\u2019s fiscal limitations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asked whether the government would revise the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) target after Bank Negara Malaysia last week affirmed that Malaysia’s growth rate was 4.3 per cent in 2019, the lowest in the last 10 years, Lim said the announcement would be made during the stimulus package announcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said a lot of explanations have been given on the GDP performance and now is the time to look forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dismissing the possibility of a recession hitting Malaysia due to the outbreak, he said:\u00a0\u201cSometimes the fear is worse\u00a0than the disease (Covid-19) itself. So, we should not be trapped by\u00a0fear and should deal\u00a0with the challenge by relying on facts rather than listening to fake news or fake mongering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe should maintain confidence on the resilience of our economy and the hard working nature of Malaysian people, \u201c he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
—\u00a0NNN-BERNAMA\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CYBERJAYA, Feb 17 (NNN-BERNAMA) —\u00a0Malaysia’s upcoming economic stimulus package, which would be announced next week, would serve to mitigate the financial impact of Covid-19\u00a0and help industries rebound when the outbreak is contained. Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said Malaysia is among the earliest to launch the package even though the impact of the outbreak has yet to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":58811,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[288,300,318],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62365"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/58811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}