Anwar said that increasing interest rates would burden the public, especially operators of small businesses and those with low income.

“We are facing the problem of the falling ringgit, among others, because our interest rates are low,” he said.

“If the government increases the interest rates, the people will be burdened. If the government lowers the interest rates, the ringgit will fall.

“Between the falling ringgit and burdening the people, I choose the people,” he said at an event with enforcement agencies here.

Bank Negara Malaysia maintained the overnight policy rate (OPR) at its pre-pandemic level of 3% last week.

BNM’s decision to raise the OPR by 25 basis points (bps) on May 3 caught many by surprise given that it had hit the pause button in January and March.

Before that, BNM had raised the OPR by a total of 100bps between May and November last year.

The ringgit’s slide has been a hot topic for months. As at 9am today, the local currency was set at 4.6190/4.6230 against the greenback compared with 4.6500/4.6535 at yesterday’s close.

The ringgit has also taken a nosedive against the pound sterling, falling to its lowest level in seven years as it surpassed the significant threshold of RM6 to £1. It ended yesterday at RM6.0120 to £1.

Apart from the falling ringgit, Anwar said that another challenge the government faces is the high national debt of over RM1.5 trillion it inherited from the previous government.

“But the good news is that in the first quarter of the year, we had RM71.4 billion in investments,” he said at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre.

“The country’s economic growth surpassed that of Singapore, China, and Indonesia at 5.6%; monthly inflation is low at 2.8%; and unemployment is decreasing.”