THE reopening of more economic sectors under the second movement-control order (MCO 2.0) has succeeded in reducing the country’s losses to RM300 million a day, compared with RM2.4 billion a day during the MCO 1.0.

Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz said the MCO 2.0 allowed more economic sectors to operate than the previous one to balance the health aspects of the people and the current economic pressures.

“During the first MCO, our country suffered a loss of RM2.4 billion a day. If implemented continuously, surely our country’s economic system, including the public health system, will paralyse,” he said in his opening remarks at Inland Revenue Board’s 25th Revenue Day today.

He also said the country has managed to limit the number of deaths due to Covid-19 to 0.3% ratio, or in the lowest 5.0% category globally.

He said the effectiveness of the government’s measures to curb the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic had also been recognised by the international credit rating agency Moody’s, which maintained Malaysia’s A3 rating with stable projections in January this year.

“Moody’s also expects the pandemic not to have a long-lasting effect on the country’s economic structure.

“Therefore, the current and subsequent waves of contagion will only delay but not hinder the country’s economic recovery towards a higher and sustainable growth path,” he said.

Tengku Zafrul said the success of this rating was driven by a strong economic foundation, good fiscal discipline including the support of economic sector diversification.

However, he said this depended heavily on the country’s ability to curb the pandemic and also implement continuous recovery in external demand.

Although Malaysia experienced a contraction in gross domestic product of 5.6% last year, Tengku Zafrul said this figure was better than the initial projections by international organisations such as the International Monetary Fund (-5.8%), the World Bank (-5.8%) and the Asian Development Bank (-6.0%).

He also said Malaysia’s performance was better compared with regional peers such as Thailand (-6.1%) and the Philippines (-9.5%) and other countries such as the United Kingdom (-9.9%). – Bernama, March 1, 2021.