Azlan Othman

The COVID-19 pandemic and the drop in the global oil price to around USD20 per barrel pose a greater challenge to the nation. The people should stay united and cooperate to overcome the uncertain economic situation, Minister at the Prime Minister’s Office and Minister of Finance and Economy II Dato Seri Setia Dr Awang Haji Mohd Amin Liew bin Abdullah said yesterday.

“The current economic situation is tough. Although the oil price dropped to below USD40 per barrel in 2014-2016, it stabilised. In 2018-2019, the oil price stood at USD70 and stabilised at USD60. However, in the latter part of 2019 and during the COVID-19 pandemic, the oil prices continue to fall,” he said.

“It is a challenging time, especially with the oil price in the mid USD20’s these days. In fact it has been challenging even before the COVID-19 pandemic. The global economy is affected and many countries will go into recession,” the minister told a press briefing.

“We don’t know what will happen in the days or in the coming months. We need to stay united and cooperate to overcome this pandemic. We can overcome this. We will become stronger after this and learn lessons from this. With Artificial Intelligence, we will be better equipped and able to handle problems better in the future,” Dato Seri Setia Dr Awang Haji Mohd Amin Liew added.

“Our focus is to save lives and the economy, especially with the drop in oil prices affecting the government revenue. We are affected by everything,” the minister said.

“We spend tens of millions of dollars and will even spend more. When it comes to government funding, leave it to the Ministry of Finance and Economy (MoFE). We need not have to borrow from others.”

Asked on the job security which has affected locals amid the dwindling businesses due to the COVID-19 outbreak, Dato Seri Setia Dr Awang Haji Mohd Amin Liew said people need to realise that they need to grab every job opportunity available during this hard time.

“It also helps reduce the burden faced by the government. We need the private sector to play their role and provide jobs. If people don’t take these jobs, it puts more pressure on the government. This is an unprecedented time and we need to work together.”

Asked on whether Brunei will also cut interest rates during this hard time to boost the economy as practised by Central Banks around the world, the minister said the Brunei currency is on par with the Singapore dollar and like in many other countries, “we have a monetary policy to determine interest rates”.

“In Brunei Darussalam, we have a different mechanism and during a crisis like this, we speak to banks. We had a meeting with the Brunei Association of Banks (BAB) yesterday to find out the feedback from businesses not just on tourism but also on other sectors and how these have been impacted.

“The tourism sector experienced the COVID-19 effect earlier than other sectors. We had our first case on March 9. It was only about two weeks ago that businesses began to be affected and people were stopped from mingling. We are only starting to see its effect,” he said.

“In implementing policies, we need to have a better understanding and the MoFE is getting feedback from banks and the people to formulate an appropriate policy to help them,” the minister said.