The recent Budget 2018 announcement by our Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak took many by surprise, with over 7% higher total budget allocation compared to Budget 2017.

Budget 2018 is focused on the theme ‘Prosper with inclusive economy, balancing duniawi (worldly) and ukhrawi (other-worldly) excellence to better the lives of the rakyat towards TN50 aspirations’, which isn’t too different from Budget 2017’s theme of ‘Accelerating growth, ensuring fiscal prudence, enhancing well-being of the rakyat’.

A few new budget allocation categories in Budget 2018 include a RM30 million allocation for medical tourism as well as a RM328.5 million allocation towards digital economy.

Although there’s no increase for BR1M in Budget 2018, it’s been noted that an amount of RM6.8 billion (same as Budget 2017) will be distributed among eligible Malaysians at a maximum of RM1,200. This is expected to benefit around 7 million Malaysians mainly under the B40 household category, who in majority earn an average household income of RM3,000, just as it did in 2017.

Budget 2018 also mentioned a number of benefits and allocations for the M40 household group (average household income of less than RM9,000), such as a 2% income tax reduction for those who earn an annual income of between RM20,000 and RM70,000.

Good news for expecting parents (and parents in general), through the ADAM50 programme, all children born between 1st January 2018 to 2022 will be eligible for an Initial Savings Fund of RM200 via PNB’s Unit Trust Scheme. Also, the government is proposing an increase of maternity leave to 90 days (from the current 60 days) for employees in the private sector.

Want to know what else is different in Budget 2018 compared to the previous year? Check out the full play-by-play in our infographic below!

 

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• B40
• BR1M
• Budget
• Budget 2017
• Budget 2018
• M40