Malaysia Economy Stable

Malaysia’s economic stability is better than Singapore’s, says Barisan Nasional. In a statement on Saturday, the ruling party said although Singapore had always done better in gross domestic product growth, this trend had now changed, Malaymailonline reported. “The reason why Malaysia has been more resilient post-2009 is a deliberate effort by Naib Tun Razak’s Economic Transformation Program for Malaysia to not to be overly-dependent on world commodity prices, international trade and on foreign investments as we were in the past. There was a deliberate rebalancing to the domestic economy,” it said in a statement. It added that among efforts taken in the ETP was to reduce reliance on petroleum-related income. “Hence, the slump in oil prices did not affect Malaysia as much as Singapore, which is the oil hub of Asia. “The Malaysian government’s reliance on petroleum-related income has dropped from more than 41.3% in 2009 to 14% now, a remarkable achievement,” it said. It added that the move by the government to redistribute income and development to rural economies had also increased domestic demand.