PENANG, MALAYSIA: Do not compare
Singapore’s economy with that of Malaysia’s.
It is like comparing “first-class grapes (Singapore) with
first-class apples (Malaysia),” Prime Minster Datuk Seri Abdullah
Ahmad Badawi said when addressing the Chinese community at the
Penang Chinese Town Hall (PCTH) dialogue session yesterday.
“We are a population of over 20 million and we rank eighth in
the world in terms of our competitiveness.
“This is not the Government’s figure and I am not telling you
lies. This statistic is from an international survey.
“If I quote statistics from our own surveys, you will not
believe us. Everywhere I go, the business community tells me that
Malaysia is doing very well. These people are smart. You cannot
fool them because they are well-read,” he said, adding that the
Government had no reason to lie.
“Please trust us – we are your government. If you look at the
economy, we are doing well. That is a fact proven by figures. But
people still claim otherwise because of increasing prices. This is
a very simplistic way of analysing the economy.
“Nobody is happy to see prices rising but this is out of our
control. The question is not how to bring down prices but how to
help the rakyat (people) cope.
“Every country in the world is faced with rising oil prices
except maybe Brunei but you cannot compare. The RM40bil (S$17.5bil)
oil subsidy we give out can be used to build better schools, roads,
hospitals and infrastructure but we don’t want to burden the
people,” he said, adding that education and medical treatment was
also heavily subsidised by the Government.
“We subsidise even water and electricity, yet people are angry
when they hear the word ‘toll’. We try to subsidise as much as
possible but we still need to impose toll charges because we need
to build roads,” he said before thanking the Chinese community for
contributing to the country’s economy.
“The private sector is dominated by the Chinese and I want to
say a big “thank you” to the community for creating so many job
opportunities,” he said.
