Mahathir Pushes Malaysia Budget Gap to Highest Since 2013
- Fiscal deficit set to widen to 3.7% of GDP this year
- Government seeks to more than double dividend from Petronas
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Malaysia’s government will push its budget deficit to the highest in five years and will hike taxes and draw more income from the state oil company to help plug the shortfall.
In the first budget since Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad took office in May, the government is widening its deficit target for this year to 3.7 percent of gross domestic product from a 2.8 percent target under the previous government. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of nine economists was 3.2 percent.