While expectations for the upcoming national-level Budget 2024 are a mix bag of wants from various sectors, Steven Sim, Deputy Finance Minister II, revealed that small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the middle-income groups – still labelled as M40 – will be big focuses.
“The M40s have been the most affected during the pandemic and are still in need of assistance. We need to look at how to empower the middle-income group and the SMEs as they are the ones creating jobs and generating income. As we focus on reducing the costs of living, we are not looking at reducing the costs of goods, but to also increase the revenue of businesses,” he said.
This is in line with the recently announced Madani Economic Framework as one of the focus pillars is to drive up domestic direct investment (DDI).
SMEs have been sharing how these new proactive policies have ignored them and they feel being left out. Sim shared how the Malaysia’s Ministry of Finance (MoF) is aware of the call for more support from SMEs.
“We are chasing FDI right now, (however, at the same time,) DDIs are of the utmost importance as they can generate income and also provide jobs. (In essence,) they are direct catalysts for our economy,” Sim added.
To-date, various economic support programmes directly support those in the B40 category; the ones in the M40 group who are now struggling to make ends meet; and SMEs that have no access to support from banks and financial institutions.
While this may be a good sign for M40s and SMEs, it is still a huge broad stroke that does not go into specifics of what both should expect from the upcoming Budget 2024 announcement.
Interestingly, the MoF still keeps its feedback page for Budget 2024 open to the general public. Those keen on sharing their views can drop their thoughts in the automated form.