Budget 2005

Post Budget 2005, I have heard groans and grunts from my smoker and drinker friends and relatives on the increased taxes on cigarrettes and alcohol. Not to exclude my mom who complains that her regular cigarrettes stockists do not want to sell ocigarrettes to her convenience shop until the price hike takes effect. They are loading up on the stock to sell it at new prices.

Nevertheless, I am quite optimistic of the budget that was announced by our Malaysian Prime Minister yesterday afternoon. The incentives and measures in Budget 2005 focuses on four key areas – fiscal consolidation, enhancing business competitiveness and increasing domestic investment, promoting and developing new sources of growth and capital market expansion.


On a budget 

The biggest share of the allocation has gone to the rural and agriculture sector, which I believe is good for our economy - we have the resources that need to be mobilised to greater efficiency. There should be a bigger population of the new breed of modern farmers who are business savvy and uses technology to their benefit. Malaysia need to develop our rural areas - this has been overlooked and as a result people are migrating to big cities, leading to over-concentration of "brain reserves" and almost none in the less urban areas. How do we overcome this?

I am secretly pleased and delighted that the Government is promoting a healthy lifestyle - go ahead and call me a party pooper - by imposing higher taxes on cigarrettes and alcohol. If people have to pay RM7.20 for 20 sticks of cigarettes, the price would be quite a heavy toll on smokers. You can see how much money you burn daily on cigarrettes. Theoretically, it will help reduce the number of people who can afford cigarrettes, and hopefully reduce the number of smokers in Malaysia. The reduced subsidy on petrol will further reduce the population of people who can afford both cigarrettes and cars. Choose - more money for cigarrettes or more money for petrol. You need petrol to go to work and get around.


Free milk 

Analysts and asset managers have described the 2005 Budget as a good one that will probably give the stock market a little boost, because the Government want to expand the capital market by allowing more companies to own licenses for venture capital firms and brokerages.

I surely hope with the RM500 million for the maintenance of public infrastructure, my company would be getting new projects next year.

On the capacity building like training new skilled man power, I think this should have been addressed a long time ago. First, they should improve the standard of the English language in Malaysia, both urban and rural, and especially in the rural areas. English language, I believe, must be mastered by everyone, if Malaysians were to become world-class citizens, and able to compete with our foreign counterparts. This is a serious need - judging from what I see and hear with my own eyes and ears.

Especially if we are promoting health tourism and education tourism - there is great potential for growth in health tourism in Asia, just look at Thailand with their five-star health resorts. Why re-invent the wheel, when the business model we are looking at is quite close to home. But good English is a must if we want to do as well as Thailand's health tourism industry. This is also true for education tourism. Our standards of English language must be at par with Singapore at least so as to allow foreign students to pursue their higher education in Malaysia.

Whilst bonuses for the public sector workers are good, but hey, what about the private sector? We work harder! Hehehe...we hardly go home before 6:30 p.m. and we don't take tea breaks and long lunches. I just hope that the bonus will motivate the civil servants to work harder.

Anyways, it is no surprise to me that the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) was not too excited about the budget. Zainal Rampak was quoted as saying that his major source of unhappiness is the budget’s silence on the issue of minimum wage, which is non-existence here. While my salary is like heaven-and-earth-far from minimum wage, for which I am blessed by virtue of my education and opportunities, I do feel deep concern for the supposedly minimum wage workers.

But anyways, overall, the budget, I believe, is people-friendly (except to smokers and drinkers), futuristic, visionary and well-encompassed. I believe the budget will benefit us in reducing the high cost of living in Malaysia, especially big cities like Kuala Lumpur, Johor Bahru and Penang. I am 99% behind this effort by the Government - errr, 1% margin of error, that is, as nobody's perfect. But then again, a good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.