PENANG has refuted claims that its GDP (gross domestic product) per capita growth is among the poorest in the country.

Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said the state had recorded improvements since it was taken over by the opposition.

He was commenting on the tweets of Minister in Prime Minister’s Department in charge of the Economic Planning Unit Abdul Rahman Dahlan yesterday saying Penang had the third lowest GDP per capita growth among the states for the years 2008 to 2016.

Rahman had attributed the findings to Gerakan secretary-general Liang Teck Meng in his tweet.

Lim said it was true that Penang was at the bottom when the state was governed by Barisan Nasional.

“From 2005 to 2015, we ranked the lowest. He (Rahman) said since 2008, we were the third lowest in growth. But we must remember that this is due to BN.

“Since 2008, Penang’s GDP per capita growth started to improve. In 2009, we were seventh. Each year, we climbed up the table.

“In 2013 and 2014, we were at the top. Under BN, Penang was at the bottom but under Pakatan Harapan, we are at the top,” he told reporters today.

Lim said this was based on the analysis by Dr Lim Kim Hwa, who obtained his doctorate in Finance from Cambridge University, where he was an associate professor.

A table showing the GDP per capita growth of Penang and other states, according to think tank Penang Institute’s calculations based on the latest GDP data by the Statistics Department, shows the state has gradually improved its ranking over the years.

From 2008 to 2015, Penang’s GDP per capita growth was at 33.1%, ranking 12th out of 15 states. From 2009 to 2015, growth improved to 49% (7th).

From 2010 to 2015, Penang grew 33.5% (6th); 2011 to 2015 (26.2%, 3rd)’ 2012 to 2015 (21%, 2nd); 2013 to 2014 (16.5%, 1st); and 2014 to 2015 (6.4%, 1st).

From 2013 to 2015, Penang’s GDP per capita growth outperformed federal territories Kuala Lumpur and Labuan.

“The numbers cannot be disputed, unless Rahman wants to dispute a Cambridge professor.

“This is the fact. We have shown that CAT (competency, accountability, transparency) works to put Penang at the top,” Lim said.

Liang had said last year that Penang had recorded the slowest GDP per capita growth rate in Malaysia since 2007.

Serdang MP Dr Ong Kian Ming, who is also Penang Institute general manager in Kuala Lumpur, was reported to have explained last October that the data was outdated and if recalculated, it would show that Terengganu had the lowest growth rate.

Ong said when statistics were updated, Penang’s growth rate would stand at 43% and Terengganu’s at 36.2%.

He said Gerakan had also failed to acknowledge that because it depended on global trade, Penang was hardest hit by the 2008 financial crisis, which caused its economy to contract by 10.5% compared with the 1.5% contraction the Malaysian economy suffered.

Ong said the Penang government had worked hard to recover from the crisis, and the state’s GDP growth rate was higher than the national growth rate in all the years between 2010 and 2015 except  2012. – April 23, 2017.\\