"We're anticipating and forecasting that deficit will go up this year for Malaysia," Malaysia's Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz told CNBC, adding that fiscal deficit will come in at around 5.8% to 6%.In August, Malaysia's parliament voted to allow the government to borrow up to 60% of its GDP as part of temporary measures to ease the blow of the pandemic on businesses.
Malaysia's debt levels are set to go up, says its finance minister, as the country embarks on measures to support businesses and citizens to deal with the economic fallout from the conoravirus. "We're anticipating and forecasting that deficit will go up this year for Malaysia," Tengku Zafrul Aziz told CNBC, adding that fiscal deficit will come in at around 5.8% to 6%. So far, fiscal injections into the economy stand at around 20% of its GDP, according to Zafrul.
"We are still focused on fiscal responsibility, of course. We have debt-to-GDP now at around 53%, it will end at around 56%. We have approval from parliament to go up to 60%," he said Monday during an interview on CNBC's "Asia Squawk Box."
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