By Shazwan Mustafa Kamal
The Malaysian Insider
Jan 11, 2012
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 11 — Massive borrowing and irresponsible spending by the Barisan Nasional (BN) government will result in Malaysia becoming a fully indebted nation before the end of the decade, Lim Guan Eng said today.
The Penang chief minister said that Putrajaya’s debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio has increased yearly from 53.1 per cent in 2010 to 53.8 per cent last year and is expected to hit 54.8 per cent this year.
“This is extremely dangerous, and even more disastrous when coupled with statistics from Bank Negara’s Annual Report 2010, which revealed that Malaysia’s household debt at the end of 2010 was RM581 billion, or 76 per cent of GDP, thus giving us the dubious honour of having the second-highest level of household debt in Asia, after South Korea.
“In absolute terms, federal government debt rose by 71 per cent in four years to RM456 billion at (the) end (of) 2011 from RM266 billion at end (of) 2007,” said Lim in a statement today.
The DAP secretary-general said by following the same expansion rate, national debt would be a projected RM780 million by 2016 and RM1.3 trillion by 2020. Continue reading “Guan Eng says national debt ‘dangerous’, potentially disastrous”