No tax hikes for public as reforms bear fruit, says PMO
KUALA LUMPUR, June 19 — The Prime Minister Office's (PMO) said today that the government is committed to economic reforms but not at the expense of placing additional taxes on the general public.
In today's livestream delivered by the senior press secretary to the prime minister, Tunku Nashrul Abaidah, he said the government remained committed to reforming the economy and bureaucracy while ensuring that all policies ultimately benefit the people.
'Malaysia is among the countries with the lowest tax to GDP ratio in the world which is around 12 per cent. This means revenue space remains small and tax based expansion is needed to ensure the country's fiscal sustainability.
'However the government's principle is clear whereby the burden of this will not fall on the wider public,' he said.
Nashrul said that tax revenues were reinvested into pro-people programmes like RM13 billion allocated to the Sumbangan Tunai Rahmah and Sumbangan Asas Rahmah reaching nine million recipients.
Another RM400 million had gone to refurbish ageing clinics and more than RM600 million spent to fix more than 8,000 school toilets benefitting close to five million students.
Apart from that, Malaysia's jump from 34th place to 23rd in the 2025 World Competitiveness Ranking (WCR) marked its best performance since 2020.
PMO said this was down to more than 1,000 initiatives under the Reformasi Kerenah Birokrasi to streamline public service delivery.
Malaysia also recorded RM89.8 billion in approved investments in the first quarter of 2025 a 3.7 per cent increase from the same period last year.
These investments are expected to generate 1,600 new projects and over 33,000 job opportunities nationwide.
In the microelectronics and semiconductor sector alone Malaysia secured RM4.6 billion in investment potential and RM507 million in export potential through its participation in Semicon South-east Asia 2025.
'These numbers reflect strong investor confidence in Malaysia's reform direction,' the PMO added.
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