KUALA LUMPUR: The government needs to formulate a long-term recovery strategy or plan to drive the country's economic growth post-COVID-19 pandemic.

Assoc Prof Dr Aida Idris, entrepreneurship lecturer at University of Malaya's Faculty of Business and Accounting, said it is time for the government, together with the recently established National Recovery Council, comes up with a plan to spur the country's economic growth in the long run.

"With the participation of corporate figures in the council, a strategic plan can be drawn up in line with the aspirations of the Shared Prosperity Vision 2030," he said on Bernama TV's "Ruang Bicara" programme entitled "Bagaimana PEMULIH Memulih?" last night.

Aida said an economic sustainability plan for the next five to ten years should be in place so that the country could fully emerge from the health crisis that began last year.

"The packages introduced earlier are indeed appropriate in helping households and small and medium enterprises manage cash flow for the time being," she said.

Meanwhile, Prof Datuk Dr Azali Mohamed, lecturer at Universiti Putra Malaysia's School of Business and Economics, said although the packages introduced earlier were very important for certain groups, the assistance was only for survival and could not be used for savings and investment purposes.

"I doubt that the packages introduced can last for the next two or three years because the injections given by the government were only for a short period of time," he said.

Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin had said that the government would announce the continuation of the National Recovery Plan (NRP) and fine-tune other economic recovery measures during the tabling of the 12th Malaysia Plan (12MP) and Budget 2022.

The the 12MP is expected to be tabled in the Dewan Rakyat on Sept 20 and Budget 2022 on Oct 29.

-- BERNAMA