Johor tables surplus budget for fourth consecutive year

The Johor state government has tabled a surplus budget for the fourth consecutive year for 2015.

Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin under the budget, revenue collection will be RM1.239 billion compared to management expenditure of RM1.235 billion, marking a surplus of RM3.82 million.

"Of the revenue collection, tax revenue is estimated at RM425 million, non-taxable revenue at RM607 million and receipts RM205 million," he said when tabling the Budget 2015 in the Johor State Legislative Assembly at Kota Iskandar, near Nusajaya, today.

Development expenditure for 2015, Khaled said, was RM366 million with RM260 million allocated for infrastructure and administration facilities, RM39 million for Islamic development and RM20 million for agricultural programmes and basic facilities.

He added that the state government through the development expenditure had also allocated RM31 million for drainage and irrigation projects, RM2.16 million for housing and RM12 million for forestry and tourism.

On the state's economic performance,Khaled said Johor had posted growth of 4.9 per cent last year to exceed the national growth rate of 4.7 per cent.

"The Statistics Department reported that for 2013, Johor was among the key contributors to the national growth momentum, other than the Klang Valley, he added.

"The state's gross domestic product last year recorded RM72.28 billion which has been consistently dominated by the manufacturing and services sectors," he added.

This year Khaled said, Johor's GDP is expected to be between 5.6 per cent to 6.1 per cent.

The GDP growth last year he said, was supported by high investments, with the manufacturing sector recording the highest at RM18.7 billion and up to July this year, had already registered RM14.4 billion.

"Of the RM18.7 billion, a total of RM12.7 billion represents local direct investments and RM5.9 billion, from overseas," he added.

To ensure the progress in economic development is maintained, Mohamed Khaled said the state government was now in the final stages of preparing the Johor State Strategic Growth Plan.