Malaysia Budget 2017 has successfully been tabled by the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak. Though experts said that this latest budget covers a wide area of the economy, many forecasts and items on the wish list did not materialised.<\/p>\n
This budget saw an increase in allocation compared to the Budget 2016 recalibration by 3.4% to RM260.8 billion.<\/p>\n
In his Budget 2017 speech, Najib said, \u201cThe Government is always committed to implement an optimum budget for rakyat<\/em> through prudent spending even though we are faced with global economic uncertainties.\u201d<\/p>\n Due to the declining global crude oil prices, the national budgets have been reducing the country\u2019s dependency on the sector, from 41.3% of the country\u2019s revenue from oil and gas in 2009 to only 14.6% in 2016.<\/p>\n This shift of source of revenue has been made possible with the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) announced in Budget 2015. The GST collection has reached nearly RM30 billion as of October 19, 2016.<\/p>\n To the relief of Malaysians, GST will not be increased next year.<\/p>\n However, Malaysians should not be expecting more subsidies next year as the subsidy allocation has been cut from RM26.1 billion in 2016 to only RM10 billion next year.<\/p>\n Other than the lack of subsidies, Najib, who also acts as the Finance Minister, announced other perks for Malaysians in this budget, such as the new housing rental in urban areas for youths, new tax reliefs to benefit parents and more entrepreneurship programmes to elevate the lower-income group.<\/p>\n Take a look at the infographic to find out what are the key highlights from the budget.<\/p>\n