Malaysia finmin: scrapping GST will create $5 billion hole in budget

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Malaysia’s finance minister said on Thursday that a promised withdrawal of a goods and services tax would create a 21 billion ringgit ($5.3 billion) hole in the budget, which will be mostly plugged by increased oil-related revenues and spending cuts on projects.

Lee Guan Eng said the scrapping of the tax on June 1 can be offset by 5.4 billion ringgit of oil-related revenues and cuts on non-essential projects amounting to 10 billion ringgit.

He said a new sales tax would likely be introduced on Sept. 1, and that the government would meet its projected budget deficit of 2.8 percent for 2018.

Disclaimer: Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. All CFDs (stocks, indexes, futures) and Forex prices are not provided by exchanges but rather by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual market price, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Therefore Fusion Media doesn`t bear any responsibility for any trading losses you might incur as a result of using this data.

Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.