Stronger Infrastructure Will Unleash Full Economic Potential

Transcription

1. Stronger infrastructure will unleash full economic potential KUALA LUMPUR : It is important for Asean countries to focus on strengthening transport infrastructure as it will help unleash the region's full economic potential, said Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai. "This is the age of Asean. More importantly, I am excited to see how we unleash the Asean economic potential through connectivity," said Liow during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum on Asean 2016, here, yesterday. He added that infrastructure development would continue to play an important role in the country as it helped to generate economic growth. "Despite the infrastructure deficit in Asean, we still can see that there's growth. Asean's growth from a gross domestic product of US$1.3 trillion (RMS.4 trillion) in 2007 to US$2.6 trillion this year is robust," said Liow. He said the Asean Economic Community (AEC) initiative would able to boost the flow of goods, people and intra-trades in the region. "With the establishment of the AEC, we need to increase our intra-trade within the Asean countries. "AEC is one of the ways that really came up with good policies for Asean to work together as a team, as an AEC," said Liow. He said the government was very committed to infrastructure development and it was aware that some of the projects are off budget. "Projects we need to go for are the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects. "We also know that the cost of PPPs is higher than government funding, but to ensure sustainable growth and keee the economy growing, we need these infrastructure." Liow added that even with some projects being off budget, the government had managed to control the deficit at about 3.1 per cent. "We are confident if we do it now, we will able to pay off in years to come. "We must understand that only through infrastructure, transportation development will we be able to create more growth," he said. SOURCE: NEW STRAITS TIMES | PAGE:B5 | JUNE 2, 2016