Najib pledges to do his best

Najib said the national debt was within control and had in fact been reduced to 52.5% from 54% previously. - Filepic

KUALA LUMPUR: Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has promised to do his best for the nation even though he could not meet everyone who saw him to give their feedback on Budget 2018.

“If you do not believe me, outside my office at Parliament House is like a fish market every day,” said the Prime Minister.

“But I will do my best for this nation. “I will not shirk from my responsibility for as long as people want me to continue to lead this country,” he said in his keynote address at the National Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Malaysia (NCCIM) Economic Forum 2017 here yesterday.

On China’s investments in Malaysia, Najib said the matter had been increasingly politicised and blown out of proportion.

Malaysia welcomed foreign investments from around the world, whether from China, Japan, India, Saudi Arabia, Europe or the Americas, he said. In May this year, nine business agreements with proposed investments, estimated at RM31.3bil, were signed between Malaysia and Chinese companies.

This is in addition to 14 MoUs signed on defence, agriculture, education, finance and construction sectors worth RM143.6bil that were signed on Nov 2 last year.

Najib pointed out that as at the first quarter of this year, the Department of Statistics revealed that investments from China represented only 2% of the total foreign direct investment (FDI) stock in Malaysia.

It was number 10 among the top 10 FDI nations in Malaysia, he added.

“They (China) still have a long way to go. All this negative talk about Chinese investments is really politically motivated,” he added.

Najib assured that the Government would not compromise on the country’s sovereignty when it came to FDIs.

“We will ensure mutually beneficial commercial partnerships, employment creation, market access, SME development and local procurement of raw materials,” he said.

He added that the Opposition politicians who warned about Chinese investments were the same ones who wanted to abolish the Goods and Services Tax – with no answer as to how they would find RM41bil in revenue that the tax had brought in last year.