THE 12th Malaysia Plan (12MP) acknowledges the need for fiscal policy to be expansionary. It also acknowledges that “fiscal consolidation [can only] resume once the economy is on a better footing to ensure long-term fiscal sustainability”.
However, in the same breath, the 12MP is also committed to – and by extension locked into – reducing the fiscal deficit to between -3.5% and -3% (negative = deficit) of GDP by 2025 (ie within a fixed time frame).
