News Snapshot

The Central Bank announced the latest international reserves of Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) is at US$103.6bil. This reserves is enough to finance 7.1 months of retained imports and 1.1 times the short-term external debt. The main components of the international reserves were foreign currency reserves (US$97bil), International Monetary Fund reserves position (US$800mil), Special Drawing Rights (US$1.2bil), gold (US$1.5bil) and other reserve assets (US$3.1bil).
The Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has reaffirmed that Malaysia is impossible to go bankrupt as it can control the debt level to diminish it to 50.4% against the self-imposed ceiling of 55%, gathered higher foreign reserves, while works on infrastructure projects are in full swing. The Prime Minister stated that government is implementing the Economic Transformation Programme to stimulate the growth of the economy.
The aim of the final version of Trans-Pacific trade deal is to reduce trade barriers in some Asia-Pacific’s fastest-growing economies, including Malaysia. This action signals the agreement was a step closer to reality even without its star member, which is the United States. The deal will lessen tariffs in economies that together amount to greater than 13% of global gross domestic products (GDP) which has a total amount of $10 trillion.
The Britain’s cross-party Treasury Select Committee of lawmakers stated that they are launching an inquiry into cryptocurrencies and also the underlying distributed ledger technology. The committee said this investigation will emphasize on the opportunities and risks of cryptocurrencies which may be posed to consumers, businesses and the government.
The latest policy released by US Federal Reserve showed that the committees are more confidence to keep increasing the interest rates as most of them believe inflation rate will be enhanced. The expectation is made where the new Fed chief Jerome Powell will lead his colleagues in raising interest rates in March 2018. The voting members and policymakers also upgraded their forecasts towards the economic prospects since December 2017.

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