Explain how printing money and banning interest rates will help boost Malaysia’s economy, Guan Eng asks Perikatan

KUALA LUMPUR, July 4 — DAP chairman Lim Guan Eng today asked the Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition to explain how its economic policies can realistically lower living costs and strengthen the ringgit and growth at the same time.

He claimed that its proposals like printing more money and banning interest rates have failed to be feasible solutions in the past.

“Can PN explain how their irresponsible economic policies of printing money and banning interest rates can help to reduce our cost of living, strengthen growth and revitalise the value of our Ringgit?

“Distributing helicopter money as suggested by a Bersatu leader, is widely discredited with the traumatic German experience of a super-hyperinflation in the 1920s, leading to the rise of Aldolf Hitler and Nazism.

“Such irresponsible economic policies and playing up on 3R issues makes PN a clear and present danger to the political stability, national unity, racial cooperation, religious harmony, prosperity and economic progress of Malaysia,” the Bagan MP said in a statement.

Lim was referring to a suggestion back in 2020 by Machang MP Wan Ahmad Fayhsal Wan Ahmad Kamal for Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) to print more money and directly hand the cash to Malaysians.

The Bersatu Youth chief who was deputy youth and sports minister at that time proposed the idea during an interview with radio station BFM.

Lim said that the current weak value of the ringgit is a matter of great public concern that the new BNM governor Datuk Abdul Rasheed Ghaffour needs to address “as the custodian of US$113 billion in foreign exchange reserves”.

Lim, who was a former finance minister, noted that while Malaysia has one of the best Islamic Shariah financial systems without interest rates in the world, it operates on a parallel level with an interest-based financial system.

“The proposal by PAS and PN of banning interest rates will cause havoc with our financial system and will wreck our economy with huge job losses from the banking, insurance, capital and share markets forced to close down,” he said.

Lim’s remarks come in response to PN leaders touting its policies ahead of the six state elections.

Selangor, Penang, Negeri Sembilan, Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu are expected to hold simultaneous elections within these next two months.