PUTRAJAYA: Government spending in the upcoming revised Budget 2023 will likely be kept at a similar level as last year, says Rafizi Ramli.
The Economy Minister stressed that the consensus among Cabinet members is that significant increases in government expenditure would be unlikely due to the economic challenges faced by the country.
“The need to repay our debts before their deadlines as interest rates rise, combined with the rising cost of raw materials and subsidy programmes, means we are likely to have less budget to allocate for new projects.
"The Covid-19 pandemic also caused many companies to produce barely any taxable income, with some even closing permanently, while a number of tax-paying workers ended up laid off. We are still recovering from this.
"As income tax is the main source of revenue for the government and we do not want to burden the remaining taxpayers with more taxes, the government has to be more mindful of its spending.
“As such, government spending is likely to focus only on key high-impact projects that can produce long-term multiplicative benefits for the country, such as projects in green technology,” he told a press conference at the launch of the OpenDOSM NextGen platform here on Thursday (Jan 12).
The revised Budget 2023 is expected to be tabled in Parliament on Feb 24.
