Claim of economic downturn a slander - Najib

Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak today stressed that the allegation that the country will face an economic downturn due to political factors is a slander.

The Prime Minister called on the people against being duped by the slander because the ruling government had succeeded in defending the national economic growth.

"It was recently spread on the social website and WhatsApp application that the country purportedly would go bankrupt in September this year. Many people had believed the rumour," said Najib in his latest entry in his official website www.najibrazak.com.

Citing the example of an economic crisis which had hit the country in 1998 and 2008, Najib said the national economy and even the global economy had a cycle of going up and down.

"In 1998, we suffered a most severe financial crisis, where the national economic growth was at a negative level, many businesses had to close down, the ringgit went down drastically and many people lost their job.

"Ten years later, the world was again faced with an economic crisis which led to the shrinking of the national economy. As the Finance Minister then, I had taken a proactive measure by drawing up an economic incentive program," he said.

Najib said that last year, the country again faced another economic challenge where the national revenue dropped by more than RM30 billion due to the drop in the price of fuel.

"But the fact is that the national economy still grew by more than four per cent during the first half of this year, and did not drop to a negative level as in 1998," said Najib.