Creating high value jobs: Malaysia budget vs S’pore budget
Creating high value jobs seems to be the second selling pitch of Najib administration after 1Malaysia. It is interesting to note that Singapore’s theme for their 2010 budget, according to their Finance Minister Mr. Shanmugarat, is “quality jobs higher income”. It will make interesting reading if a comparison is made.
By Lee Wee Tak
The budget unveiled a master plan for the next 5 to 10 years to turn Singapore into a “world of opportunities” with total expenditure of S$46.4 billion (given total population of 3.7 million, it is approximately S$ 12,500 allocated per person; by comparison, 2009 budgeted government expenditure in Malaysia of RM220 billion shared by 28 million bumis and pendatangs (in jest) amounted to approximately RM7,800 person*).
* figures of Malaysia 2009 budget is derived from Teh Chi Chang’s excellent book entitled “The Budget : How the Government is spending OUR money”
There are plenty of social aspect to comment about such as higher dependent relief for grand parents and parents, one-off topping up of CPF Medisave from S$200 to S$500 for all Singaporeans above 50 and allocation of S$200million each to citizen’s Medifund and Eldercare.
However, I am more intrigued by the budget’s effort to restructure and transform their economy which does not rely on natural resource, cheap labour or land mass. What ideas can Malaysia glean from them?
Read more at: http://wangsamajuformalaysia.blogspot.com/2010/02/creating-high-value-jobs-malaysia.html
