KUALA LUMPUR: The government needs an ad hoc national recovery council to discuss the current economic issues and measures to deal with each of them, said former international trade and industry minister Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz.
She said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim needs to preside over discussions that should be held daily– even after office hours– to ensure all bases are covered in showing Putrajaya's seriousness in tackling them.
"These include the ballooning public debt, erosion of the value of the ringgit, loss of Malaysia's competitiveness in several areas, and the lack of in-depth analysis of economic statistics, especially in the context of investments and trade.
"It is certainly not a case of being political when consumer groups and other concerned parties raise these issues," she said in a posting on her Facebook page, 'Rafidah Aziz Malaysian Citizen', today.
She suggested that relevant stakeholders including economic experts and representatives from the private sector, academia and the civil society be engaged in this effort.
Unless the issues were handled with a sense of urgency, there will continue to be erosion of confidence in public governance, she said.
On Feb 20, it was reported that Malaysia's ringgit reached a 26-year low as emerging Asian currencies weakened against the dollar.