KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is currently facing economic challenges due to some external factors which is beyond our control, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said today,
In his blog, NajibRazak.com, he wrote that the value of the American dollar has increased significantly, resulting in the decrease of value for Asian currencies.
"The nation's revenue is also affected due to the decrease in oil prices at 50 per cent more compared to last year," he wrote.
Najib said however the government has managed to address factors that could be controlled for example diversifying the nation's revenue sources.
"The government has made investments to help increase the private sectors productivity so that the nation will not be too dependent on foreign funding in the long run," he said.
He noted that the increase of household debt has also declined since 2010, and that the ringgit is expected to recover as oil prices stabilise.
"Sources of national revenue in various sectors also continue to show promising results."
Najib said the nation's economic fundamentals were strong enough to make it resilient towards being pushed by external factors.
In January this year, Najib had announced pre-emptive measures to ensure Malaysia's continued growth amidst the weak global economy.
He had given his assurance that despite anticipating 2015 to be a challenging year, the country's economic fundamentals remain strong, underpinned by comfortable levels of external reserves, low external debt, low unemployment and healthy inflows of foreign direct investments.