Pua: Malaysia’s current account in surplus for 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s current account balance will remain in surplus for 2019 and the economy is not experiencing a current account deficit, says political secretary to the Finance Minister Tony Pua.

Pua issued a statement yesterday in response to a Bloomberg interview hosted by David Ingles with the invited guest, UBS Global Wealth Management regional chief investment officer Kelvin Tay on April 11.

“Tay argued that Malaysia had a current account deficit. This is quite scary as Malaysia has always prided itself as an economy with a current account surplus, with our value of exports well-exceeding imports being one of the country’s key strengths.

“For example, in 2018, Malaysia registered a current account surplus of 2.3% of gross domestic product (GDP).

He said Malaysia does, however, have a moderate fiscal deficit, which is typical of developing countries, whereby for 2018, the deficit was 3.7% of GDP and is projected to fall to 3.4% this year.

Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng has also projected that Malaysia’s fiscal deficit would further decline to 3% for 2020 and less than 2.8% for 2021.

Commenting on Tay’s claims that oil revenue made up 30% of Malaysia’s GDP, Pua said this is incorrect and Malaysia is well-recognised by the investment community as having a fairly diversified economy.

Pua highlighted that Malaysia’s mining (including the oil and gas sector), manufacturing and services sectors made up 7.9%, 23% and 55.5% of the GDP in 2018, respectively. — Bernama