BUDGET 2018 drew praise from Chinese community leaders for its moves to improve living standards for lower income groups, but say it fell short of doing more for Chinese schools and small businesses.

Federation of Chinese Associations (Hua Zong) president Pheng Yin Huah said the proposal to remove toll charges for four highways in Selangor, Kedah and Johor was one of the “biggest highlights” of the budget.

He also welcomed moves to provide cash handouts to various needy groups, which he added would be especially helpful for the B40 and M40 groups.

“We can see that the government is committed to improving people’s living standards, especially the low- and middle-income groups.

“However, we are concerned that the RM550 million special fund for the maintenance and upgrading of government schools did not include Chinese vernacular schools,” he said.

Chinese and Tamil vernacular schools will receive RM50 million each under a separate allocation but Pheng said he hoped the government would allocate funds according to the school size and number of students.

Still, Pheng welcomed Putrajaya’s move to allocate RM50 million in loans to Chinese through Koperasi Jayadiri Malaysia Bhd (Kojadi) and RM30 million for small businesses through Yayasan Peniaga and Penjaja Kecil 1Malaysia.

RM65 million will also be allocated for new Chinese villages.

SME Association of Malaysia president Michael Kang said the allocation for small businesses was welcomed, but that SME owners would not really benefit.

“Even if the government provided allocations to SME to automate production processes, our biggest challenge is we do not have enough expertise.”

Kang said most SMEs were still labour intensive and relied on foreign workers, and without expertise and capital, it would be hard for them to transform. – October 27, 2017.