PETALING JAYA: The government has achieved its fiscal deficit target for 2019 of 3.4% of gross domestic product (GDP), says Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng.
“We reached the target 100%, we definitely achieved it,” he told reporters after the Kuala Lumpur Customs Department’s Meet the Customer Day here today.
Lim also announced that in 2019 the government collected RM27.6 bil in Sales and Service Tax (SST) revenue, surpassing the target of RM22 bil in the Budget, showing that the economy is still sustainable.
“If you ask about the (revenue) shortfall of RM17 bil because the GST (goods and services tax) collection was previously RM44 bil, in fact it is RM9 bil, because from this amount almost half are refunds which were supposed to have been paid,” he added.
Asked if the government could have afforded to abolish the GST, Lim said that in the last Budget, the government had expected a gap of RM10 bil in SST collection compared to the GST “but the gap was less than RM8 bil, and we are also announcing measures to cover that gap.
“We are all going according to plan, and the good news is the gap is a bit smaller at between RM1.5 bil and RM2 bil, and we are able to cover that shortfall, so everything is according to plan fiscally,” he argued.
Lim also announced that for this year, the government targets to collect RM27.5 bil in SST revenue but expressed optimism that the final revenue collection could be more. – Jan 9, 2020 Bernama
