KUALA LUMPUR, May 19 — Malaysia must take advantage of its current economic growth momentum by continuing the focus on economic restructuring in order to reduce the nation’s exposure to global economic challenges in the future, says Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli.

Therefore, he said, ongoing economic restructuring measures would be accelerated, including the restructuring of the energy sector to change the energy mix more towards renewable energy as well as transitioning the government’s socioeconomic policy from an income-based approach (using B40, M40 and T20 categories) to one based on household net disposable income.

Rafizi said the government would announce measures to facilitate and expand domestic solar usage in the near future to encourage more homes to have solar facilities.

"This is in line with the government’s decision to implement targeted electricity subsidies with the subsidies for the B40 and M40 groups being retained while T20 consumers will start paying tariffs which are closer to market rate,” he said in a statement today.

On the socioeconomic policy transition, the minister said the establishment of the central household socioeconomic database, as announced recently, would allow the government to accelerate the development of programmes and initiatives based on household net disposable income.

He said the Economy Ministry would also coordinate with other ministries and agencies so that the government could step up the implementation of people-friendly projects nationwide in an effort to support national economic growth while projects approved in Budget 2023 would start to be implemented.

He noted that Malaysia’s Gross Domestic Product growth of 5.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2023 was better than economists’ forecast of 4.9 per cent growth. — Bernama