Budget 2024 highlights

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KUALA LUMPUR - Following are the highlights of Budget 2024 tabled in Dewan Rakyat today by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

Themed "Reformasi Ekonomi, Memperkasakan Rakyat" (Economic Reform, Empowering People), Budget 2024 involves an allocation of RM393.8 billion with RM303.8 billion for operating expenditure while the remaining RM90 billion for development expenditure, with RM2 billion in contingency savings.

This is the second budget presented by Anwar, who is also Finance Minister, since the formation of the Unity Government in November 2022. Last February, Anwar presented a revised budget amounting to RM388.1 billion.

- Unemployment rate stands at 3.4 per cent as of August 2023
- Government proposes to increase Service Tax to 8 per cent compared to 6 per cent currently
- Proposed Service Tax hike excludes food, beverages and telecommunications
- Targeted subsidy to be implemented in stages starting 2024
- Savings from targeted subsidies to be used to increase Rahmah Cash Aid allocation from RM8 billion  to RM10 billion
- Price controls for chicken and eggs to be lifted to allow local market to function freely in ensuring a guaranteed supply
- Targeted subsidies are not an excuse to hike prices arbitrarily and unreasonably
- RM2.4 billion is allocated to build, maintain, repair quarters for civil servants, teachers, hospitals, police, armed forces, firefighters

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Budget lacks concrete gig economy policy, says youth group

PETALING JAYA: The budget tabled by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim yesterday does not have a concrete gig economy policy that guarantees social protections for workers, says a youth organisation.

Ooi Tze Howe of Higher Education Malaysia Association said the absence of a social protection policy for the youth-majority gig economy workforce is “a missing piece of the puzzle” in the 2024 budget that was tabled.

“There are no so-called enforcement policies to the gig platforms to provide social safety nets for the gig workers. That is considered ‘a miss’,” the group founder and president told FMT.

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Progressive wage model a glaring omission in Anwar’s Budget 2024

PETALING JAYA: The much-debated progressive wage model (PWM) has somehow slipped through the cracks in Prime Minister cum Finance Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s Budget 2024, economists said.

This glaring omission was highlighted by Monash University Malaysia economics professor Niaz Asadullah and Geoffrey Williams, an economist at the Malaysia University of Science and Technology.

Niaz said he had expected to see some details on the progressive wage system in the speech.

Williams noted that along with the progressive wage, details of the long-term subsidy rationalisation was also missing in Anwar’s budget speech yesterday.

Economy minister Rafizi Ramli recently announced that detailed plans for the implementation of the progressive wage system would be unveiled during the budget speech.

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