00:00The Middle East crisis and the disruption in the world.
00:03This morning I was asked about what the oil price was going to be like and the impact of the
00:07oil price to Malaysia.
00:10Fundamentally, I think it is important to recognise that Malaysia is a net energy exporter.
00:15In that sense, we have some positive benefits that are going to come up from this one.
00:21However, what's also important is to understand the implication of what's going to happen in the country itself,
00:26especially for the people in Malaysia.
00:28So as you know, over the last two years, we've been spending a lot of time doing some subsidiarisation.
00:35On the back of the subsidiarisation, we've managed to do some pass-through of the cost to the system
00:40that is allowing us to make sure that the impact from the government's fiscal base is either managed along the
00:46way.
00:47At the moment, focus on our petrol is on two things.
00:52One is to ensure that supply is stable in the country.
00:55In this instance, from the gas supply that's coming in, because Malaysia is a net exporter and also a net
01:01producer in the country,
01:03I think we've got a very good, stable supply in the country for gas.
01:07For both the consumption in our pipelines that are going to our utilities and also for industrial customers.
01:14That's important.
01:15Second, in order to make sure that also petrol supplies are in good shape,
01:20and I think stocks are in good levels at this point of time, and we do also produce fruit in
01:26the country.
01:27So that gives us some flexibility to manage through.
01:29So in essence, Malaysia is probably better suited at this juncture to manage through.
01:34Of course, price will transmit through the system, but because we have the capacity to manage through,
01:41the impact to the people will be managed in that manner.
01:44And that's something that the Prime Minister has promised and said that we will keep the price of subsidiar petrol
01:50in the country stable
01:50for the next two months.
01:52We hope that the issue that we're seeing and developing in the Middle East will find resolution.
01:59It is for the best interest of the world that we find a good resolution in head, and we pray
02:03for that.
02:04And if this is not a prolonged issue, Malaysia has the capacity to withstand.
02:11Because we must remember that we started the year with a very strong base.
02:15GDP was 5.2% for the whole of last year.
02:18We start with a very high tailwind, and the first quarter numbers are still looking promising at this point of
02:24time.
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