Seriously affected by continuous oil price drop, Malaysian ringgit has encountered biggest single-quarter decline in the fourth quarter of 2014 since the Asian financial crisis in 1998, with the depreciation rate ranking the first among all currencies of Asian emerging market, according to the latest media reports.
Brent crude prices fell 49 percent in 2014, which leads to substantial shrinking of fiscal revenues in Malaysia, the only net exporter of crude oil in Asia.
In the fourth quarter of 2014, Malaysian ringgit went down by 6.2 percent, creating a new record of decline since the Asian Financial Crisis. The monthly decline in December alone had reached 3.3 percent.
The income of oil industry accounts for 1/3 of Malaysia's fiscal revenue, according to the calculation of Hak Bin Chua, economist at the Bank of America.
Malaysia may thus fail to accomplish its projected targets of both economic growth rate and budget deficit in 2015, he predicted.
Malaysia's official target of economy growth rate in 2015 is 5 to 6 percent, while predicted by the Bank of America the rate is 4.6 percent. The budget deficit set by the government is 3 percent of its 2015 GDP, and according to the Bank of America, 3.8 percent.