The government is committed in reducing deficit in next year's budget, targetting it at 3.8 percent, said Second Finance Minister Nor Mohamed Yakcop today.

"The government is committed on that ... we have proven from reducing the budget deficit from 5.6 percent in 2002, to 5.3 percent in 2003.

"We targeted 4.5 percent last year and got 4.3 percent and we have targetted 3.8 percent for this year," he said when met at Parliament lobby.

He said targeting a zero deficit budget should not be an issue as the more important thing is to have an economic growth.

"Should we eradicate deficit budget or have sustainable deficit budget...the most important thing is to have developments with equity," he said in his winding-up speech on the Supplementary Supply Bill.

9MP projects

On the announcement by the government yesterday that 26 projects, originally planned under the Ninth Malaysian Plan will be implemented immediately, he said the projects would not involve budget allocated under the 9MP.

"We just include the project which should be implemented from 9MP and moved them under 8MP and implement them in 2005," he said.

He said the move was to stimulate the economy immediately to create more job opportunities.

"We have to expedite the projects so more people will get jobs. We can't wait until 9MP to stimulate the economy" he added.

Parliament has passed the second reading of the Supplementary Supply (2004) Bill 2005.