Malaysia's debt still at RM1 trillion level, says finance minister

The country's debt is still at the trillion ringgit threshold as per the end of 2018, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said today.

He said the government has, however, managed to reduce the country's debt from the previous figure of RM1,087 billion.

"We managed to have some reduction ... but it is still at the trillion ringgit level," Lim told a press conference after witnessing a contract signing ceremony for the LRT3 project at Prasarana Bhd headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.

He said the RM1 trillion debt level included the liabilities that the country has to pay as guarantor.

Lim cited the 1MDB debts as an example of a primary borrower, for which the loans had to be paid by the government as the guarantor for 1MDB.

"If you look under the official definition under the International Monetary Fund, where it involves the government as a direct borrower, we have to service (loans) where we are the guarantors.

"We are already paying where the primary borrower cannot pay. 1MDB is a good example," he said.

Last year, the Pakatan Harapan government announced that the country's debt had passed the RM1 trillion mark compared with RM300 billion previously.

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad made the announcement less than two weeks after Harapan took over Putrajaya, shocking the nation as the amount was far higher than the official figure provided by the previous administration.

The Finance Ministry previously said the government recorded RM687.43 billion in debts as of September 2017. - Mkini