{"id":2249,"date":"2026-01-20T17:44:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T17:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/wptest\/2026\/01\/20\/standard-chartered-malaysia-applauds-budget-2019\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T18:01:44","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T18:01:44","slug":"standard-chartered-malaysia-applauds-budget-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/2026\/01\/20\/standard-chartered-malaysia-applauds-budget-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Standard Chartered Malaysia applauds Budget 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Standard Chartered Malaysia welcomes the government\u2019s targeted measures as spelt out in the Budget 2019 to enhance the well-being of the rakyat, particularly the lower income group.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Abrar A. Anwar, Managing Director and CEO, of Standard Chartered Malaysia, says Budget 2019 reflects significant strategies and initiatives to address the need of the rakyat, especially those in the Bottom-40.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWhile we see that the nations\u2019 GDP-to-debt ratio and deficit has increased, we are nevertheless encouraged by the measures to promote growth, attract investment, reduce cost of mega projects, and the focus on private-public partnerships to drive the economy,\u201d he adds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The bank also applauds the move by the government to invest in the future and move into the Industrial Revolution 4.0 through the High Impact\u00a0Fund.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Artificial Intelligence, Abrar believes, will be a huge boost to the financial services industry as it helps to improve the client experience, lower costs and reduce fraud.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cMoving forward, Artificial Intelligence and digitisation are two areas in which we see great potential, especially for the financial services sector, which should tap into the infinite potential of technology to innovate and improve the\u00a0client experience, lower costs and improve security.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe also see the government continue to prioritise Islamic financing. Standard Chartered is the first international bank to offer Islamic products in the country, and we laud the move to grow this sphere via an extension on tax deductions when issuing sukuk,\u201d he says, welcoming the setting up of a special committee for Islamic finance, to be led by the Finance Ministry. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These, he believes, will ensure that Malaysia continues to lead the way in Islamic financing<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe also see the government doing its part to grow the halal product industry in Malaysia and make us a global halal hub by 2020, with an RM100 million allocation to grow the SME segment.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe also laud the further allocation of MYR1 billion for a Shariah-compliant SME Financing Scheme to finance halal products exporters by Islamic financial institutions,\u201d he adds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Standard Chartered Malaysia welcomes the government\u2019s targeted measures as spelt out in the Budget 2019 to enhance the well-being of the rakyat, particularly the lower income group.\u00a0 Abrar A. Anwar, Managing Director and CEO, of Standard Chartered Malaysia, says Budget 2019 reflects significant strategies and initiatives to address the need of the rakyat, especially those [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2249"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4333,"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2249\/revisions\/4333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}