PETALING JAYA: Addressing cost of living issues and improving ease of doing business must not be just about short-term relief.
Instead, these must come with clear accountability and measurable outcomes, say stakeholder groups.
The government must show clear, trackable plans, including on which agencies are responsible and how progress is reported, said Tan Sri Noor Azlan Ghazali, director of the Malaysian Inclusive Development and Advancement Institute at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.
He was commenting on government spokesman Datuk Fahmi Fadzil’s statement on a recent Cabinet retreat which agreed to prioritise cost-of-living and ease-of-doing-business issues.
Noor Azlan said the National Action Council on Cost of Living was convened early in Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s administration, with measures promised within two weeks. However, initiatives and execution updates have not been clearly communicated.
“Cost of living should not be framed mainly as a price issue. It is about increasing wages and purchasing power,” he said, arguing that assistance programmes do not address stagnant wages.
On ease of doing business, Noor Azlan said Malaysia can benchmark itself using the IMD World Competitiveness ranking, noting that the country has improved to 23rd overall but still performs weakly in business efficiency and government efficiency.
SME Association of Malaysia president Dr Chin Chee Seong said recent government initiatives provided only limited relief, with SMEs not seeing clear improvements.
Raising the e-invoicing thres-hold from RM5mil to RM10mil and pushing the implementation deadline by a year would buy companies time, but it was not a permanent fix.
“It does not really change the ease of doing business,” he said.
He added that many companies have already subscribed to e-invoicing systems, which was positive.
Chin also said cutting service tax on rental from 8% to 6% offered only marginal relief after the earlier hike.
A more urgent issue, he said, was the foreign worker application process, including administrative bottlenecks and the additional 2% EPF contribution.
Federation of Malaysian Consumers Associations chief executive officer Saravanan Thambirajah said consumers have seen some relief from targeted interventions such as cash assistance, Rahmah sales, selective subsidies and price controls on essential items, particularly for lower-income and vulnerable households.
However, these were not enough if they failed to translate into stronger purchasing power.
“Consumers are not seeing corresponding increases in wages or purchasing power,” he added.
