Gov't confident economy will be better this year - Guan Eng

The government is confident that the country's economic growth will be better this year compared to 2019 with the introduction of initiatives and measures to boost the economy, according to Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng.

As a sovereign country, Malaysia faces various economic challenges but the government has been striving to overcome it, he said.

The government, he said, wanted to ensure the country's economic fundamentals remained on solid footing besides being fiscally and financially stable to ensure the confidence of investors and international agencies.

"We can see that the country's economic growth is still healthy with economic growth forecast at about 4.7 percent, better than other countries.

"Some neighbouring countries fared far worse, but we are confident that this year's economy will be better than last year," he said in George Town today.

Lim said the government has identified five factors that would be catalysts for economic growth this year - rise in commodity prices, de-escalation in Sino-US trade tension, increase in government spending, institutional reform and injection of funds into the market.

"A government initiative involving the injection of funds into the market, like the e-wallet programme, will be launched next week," said the finance minister.

Earlier, the Penang Chinese Chamber of Commerce announced it would be organising the Chinese New Year Open House 2020 with the finance minister on Jan 25 beginning from 10am to 12 noon at the Setia Spice Convention Centre.

- Bernama