00:00My second question is how do we know that with permission, with great demographics comes great power.
00:13A large number of people bring great power.
00:18In dealing with the trend of not wanting children, child free,
00:24what is the government's strategy to help cover costs for young families in particular who are just starting out
00:35to have children due to financial challenges and life-threatening costs?
00:43This is because according to the Accounting and Credit Management Agency,
00:48the cost of raising a child until the end of university
00:54can range from RM 393,000 to RM 1.37 million.
01:10While the current Malaysian and VSI estimates that a family with a simple income
01:17with two children is estimated to need to spend RM 254,304.
01:26RM 254,304 for six years.
01:31My second question is,
01:33how far has the government's approach to raising the fertility rate in Malaysia really succeeded?
01:46Because we have found that the overall fertility rate, TFR,
01:52shows a steady decline from 2.1 children in 2010 to 1.6 children in 2022.
02:06Please, Minister.
02:11Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
02:12Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
02:13And thank you to those who have commented on the additional questions that have been raised.
02:22The decision to have children or not is up to the family.
02:35Whether they want to have children for various reasons,
02:40as Mr. Romad said earlier,
02:42whether it's because of the high cost of living,
02:46the commitment to work,
02:48the desire to have personal freedom,
02:52and the quality of life in the future.
02:55This is indeed a very worrying issue.
02:58And indirectly, it will have a long-term effect on the structure of Malaysian population.
03:07However, we at the Ministry believe that immediate efforts need to be made
03:17to overcome this very worrying trend.
03:24And that is why the government provides various healthy and conducive environments
03:34to help married couples.
03:38We do interventions to meet with this family
03:43to help them choose to have children
03:48rather than being child-free or not having children.
03:53And among other initiatives introduced by the government
03:59to slow down the decline of TFR,
04:05in recent months, additional initiatives have been announced
04:12as a support to families in the form of child care,
04:17such as increasing the exemption of income tax on child care allowance
04:23by employees or paid directly by employers to child care centres
04:29from IDR 2,400 to IDR 3,000.
04:32The government also announced the construction of
04:36the 2024 budget for the construction of 10 departments and departments.
04:42And this shows that the government's commitment
04:47to encourage women to go back to work after giving birth
04:52and the exemption of income tax to go back to work has also been announced.
04:59This means that the decline of TFR will increase
05:09and we hope that the couple's decision will change
05:18from not having children to having children
05:22based on the interventions carried out by the ministry.
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