PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak pledged on Wednesday that the government will not raise the country’s Goods and Services Tax (GST).
” I give my assurance the government has no plans to hike the GST rate,” Najib said while speaking at the 36th World Customs Day 2018 celebration in Putrajaya.
He said that GST collection for 2017 was RM44 billion (US$11.2 billion), compared with RM41 billion in 2016, reported local media.
He also said that GST has saved the country during an economic downturn.
GST was introduced not to burden the people, but to strengthen the financial resources of the government, he said.
The government could fulfill the aspirations of the people and carry out public programmes if it had stable and growing financial resources, he added.
“Without the GST, who knows, we may have succumbed to the recession,” he was quoted as saying by ChannelNewsAsia news portal.
