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With Malaysia hurt by 1MDB, debt and inflation, will Anwar be able to ease cost of living?
- Anwar inherited an economy weighed down by the 1MDB scandal, expensive infrastructure projects with China and a massive US$338 billion national debt
- Analysts say the PM needs to be creative in the budget to rein in inflation, as a GST rise or subsidy cuts will put his coalition government at risk
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Fish is more expensive at the market these days, “but we don’t get rich catching it”, says fisherman Kamil after a hard night at sea off Malaysia’s eastern coast.
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“But we don’t starve, we have all the fish that don’t sell to live off,” he said, with a wry smile from his jetty in Tanjung Lumpur, Kuantan.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is preparing to announce the 2023 budget this Friday with Malaysians – from the poor coastal areas like Kamil’s to the rich middle-class neighbourhood of Damansara in the capital – keen to see what he will offer to soothe a cost-of-living crisis that appears set to stay.
Anwar, who is also the finance minister, is putting aside the “Reformasi” reform agenda that has shaped his political story over the last two decades to focus on inflation, in a pledge he made after taking office in November.
While admirers say Malaysia is in good hands, with a man who in the mid-1990s was lauded by one publication as “Asia’s best finance minister”, Anwar faces a different set of challenges today.
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