Guan Eng: Malaysia welcomes Moody’s ratings affirmation
KUALA LUMPUR: Moody’s confidence in Malaysia’s robust growth potential is very much welcomed amid the current challenges faced by the country.
Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said the rating agency had affirmed Malaysia’s local and foreign currency issuer and senior unsecured debt ratings at A3 with stable outlook, despite recognising the country’s fiscal strength had weakened with a 3.7 fiscal deficit to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), estimated for 2018 and subsequently reduced to 2.8 per cent by 2021.
“The Finance Ministry welcomes the affirmation by Moody’s Investors Service yesterday. The government recognises these economic challenges and will take steps to overcome them over a three-year time frame to put Malaysia back on track.
“Moody’s confidence in Malaysia’s robust growth potential, deep domestic capital markets, a solid institutional framework, including strong monetary policy effectiveness, are strong credit positives,” he said in a statement.
On Friday, Moody’s said it believed that Malaysia’s economic prospects were supported by well-developed infrastructure, substantial natural resources, globally competitive manufacturing and services sectors in the longer term.
“This is evidenced by the resurgent growth in exports in October 2018 to a historic high in a single month of RM96.4 billion and a record trade surplus of RM16.3 billion.
“Such positive news follows the announcement by the Malaysian Investment Development Authority that approved Foreign Direct Investments in the manufacturing sector increased by RM35 billion, or 250 per cent to RM49 billion for the first nine months of 2018, from RM14.0 billion in the same period last year,” Lim said.
He said this demonstrated that foreign investors’ confidence in Malaysia is resurgent under the new leadership of Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, with a RM27.7 billion or 379 per cent hike in the said figures, after the transition of power that took place on May 9, 2018. — BERNAMA
Source: NST
