BY NAZLI IBRAHIM
SHAH ALAM, AUG 29: A total of 82% of respondents agreed that the Goods and Service Tax (GST) is the main reason for the increasing cost of living.
The finding was obtained from the 2017 Malaysian Survey, #MoodRakyat – Malaysian Communities’ Trend on Current Issues Survey conducted by Darul Ehsan Institute (IDE).
The survey involving 4,486 respondents from 12,082,403 Peninsular Malaysian voters showed that 42% agreed and another 40% strongly agreed while only 10% less agreeable. Another 5% do not agree and 3% strongly do not agree.
The survey that was conducted from August 11 to 16 also showed that economy is respondents’ main concern when asked on ‘issues that you are concern about in the country’.
76% respondents described inflation as their main issue and 47% said it is the high cost of living. 27% said it was poverty and social imbalance, 23% mentioned crime and brutality while 21% said it was unemployment and limited job opportunities.
Meanwhile, when respondents were asked on the national economic situation in the next two years based on current state of affairs, 21% expected is to be decline sharply, 43% said it would decline while another 25% said that it would not decline very much.
Only 1% said that the country’s economy will grow significantly while 8% expected that it will grow.
In respond to question on Malaysians’ quality of life in the last two years, 18% responded that it had declined badly, 53% said it had declined and 23% said it had moderately declined.
23% felt that it will quality of life will improve and another 1% expected it to improve significantly.
