No doubting the prime ministers claim that the 2016 Budget is œa difficult budget to present ¦ especially since the price of oil has slumped, a situation exacerbated by a decline in commodity prices due to the global economic slowdown, the devaluation of the Chinese yuan and the uncertainty regarding United States interest rates. The last is expected to go up before 2015 is out, but there is no guarantee that it will. Meanwhile, the dominance of the US dollar as a world reserve currency is being stridently challenged by China and the BRICS countries through the Asian International Investment Bank (AIIB) and the BRICS Development Bank. China is also making ready to exit the Society for the Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT). Global economic changes are, therefore, imminent within a global economic slowdown refusing to recover. Not surprisingly, Malaysia is fighting an upstream battle, though not without a paddle.
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