The government targets the national deficit to continue to decline and in 2025 the figure will reach 3.8% and according to Finance Minister II Datuk Seri Amir Hamzah Azizan, the government is planning various measures to make improvements every year to achieve that figure.
This trend of decreasing deficit can already be seen with the deficit figure in 2023 decreasing to 5% compared to 5.5% in 2022 and it is expected that the figure will decrease to 4.1% in 2024.
The total government debt is also seen to have decreased from almost RM100 billion in 2022 to RM92.6 billion in 2023, then to around RM77 billion in 2024.
The Government's dependence on loans is expected to decrease if this trend continues, this can prevent the government from accumulating a lot of debt that will become a burden in the future.
Budget management will also be more flexible as the government will not have to allocate a large portion of its budget just to pay off loans and interest.
The government aims to ensure that the debt-to-GDP ratio is below 60%, so as to achieve a lower deficit figure of 3% by 2028.
