What’s not in the report

THE change in the title of what is traditionally known as the Economic Report to Economic Outlook 2019 reflects the contents of the new-look document from the Treasury that sums up the state of the Malaysian economy.

Conspicuously missing from Economic Outlook 2019 was the chapter on public finance, which is the most important part of the report. The chapter details everything that everyone needs to know about federal government revenue, where the money goes and how much debt it carries in its books. (The section on public finance was distributed on the morning of Budget Day, a change from the past when it was part of the Economic Report. The report titled Fiscal Outlook and Federal Government Estimates 2019 was nevertheless comprehensive and had all the information that otherwise would have been in the Economic Report.)