Balancing quality with quantity growth, among challenges for policymakers

Investment, Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz noted Saudi Arabia Finance Minister Mohammed Al Jadaan’s emphasis on policymakers’ challenge in balancing growth quantity and quality, advocating for sustainable, inclusive, equitable, and resilient global prosperity.

He claimed that Mohammed Al Jadaan stressed on the difficulty policymakers face in balancing quantity and quality growth, and emphasised the importance of sustainable, inclusive, equitable, and resilient growth for global prosperity and stability.

“So unfortunately for ASEAN intra-trade within ASEAN is around 22% to 23% so there’s room for improvement of course there’s a lot of multilateral agreements being signed and ASEAN has also engaged GCC last year for the first time and we’re going to continue to engage GCC.

“In fact we have a forum after this GCC-ASEAN and again, we’ve seen also big flows from Europe and US and for us because when I talk about quality and quantity just now, what we’re seeing is that quantity of growth.

“I mention 4% to 5%, Malaysia last year is around 3.7%, this region’s around 4% to 5% but is that growth even, within the nations and within industries so when we look at as policymakers we have our plans like Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan said, it’s all about implementation it’s about execution so let’s look at industries that around ASEAN we need to ensure that they move to the next level.

Malaysia recorded a gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 3.7 per cent in 2023.

Investment, Trade, and Industry Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz anticipates Malaysia will experience a substantial 8% to 10% surge in approved investments for 2024. This projection, currently being finalized, is in line with Bank Negara’s GDP growth forecast of 4% to 5%.

“How do they do that?” he asked in the forum.

He revealed that nations need to increase the complexity, economic complexity of their industries, economic complexity of their industries, which will then lead to an increase in wages, and increase in household income and therefore in a way will bring much more stability as well.

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