KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s current interest rate at 3.25 per cent, which was raised by Bank Negara Malaysia in July 2014, is accommodative for the Malaysian banking sector.
CIMB Group Chairman Datuk Seri Nazir Razak said the current rate stood at a good level for the banking sector to grow loans at a decent rate.
“I’m a big fan of how Bank Negara has been managing the monetary policy for sure, and I think it always stay ahead of the curve...so I have no issues with the pace, which is moving up and down,” he told reporters on the sidelines of Invest Malaysia 2015 Institutional Investor conference here today.
However, Nazir said with the high consumer debt to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio, lifting interest rate would be painful for a lot of consumers.
Meanwhile, he said that the government and Malaysian companies should ‘go out’ and counter the negative news that had been spread about the Malaysian economy, which has impacted the ringgit and investor sentiment in general.
“They should go out and explain the case and share the investment fundamentals of Malaysia. We were part of the team that did the recent global sukuk, the investors warmed up during the roadshow and we did very well.
“It is also equally important for us to put the ‘elephant in the room’ behind us, clearing up the unsettled issues that are happening in our country because when the issues are not cleared up, people tend to expect the worst,” he added.
He also hopes that Malaysia is more ‘aggressive’ in terms of explaining and dealing with the issues.
“Sometimes, you cannot just spin (the issues), you’ve got to deal with the substance of the questions,” he said.
On CIMB’s expansion plan, Nazir hopes that the banking licence in Vietnam would be finalised by this year.
“We may also look at making an application to the Philippines for a banking licence, given that they’ve got new rules on foreign licences,” he said. – Bernama