MELAKA: The high cost of raising a family is one of the main contributing factors in continued low birth rates among the nation's Chinese community.
Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong said that the trend in declining birth rates has been unfolding for several years now, and is not something new.
"People have been talking about this for decades. I (myself) do not think that it is practical (to have large families), as parents must think of the future of their children," he told reporters at the 2nd meeting of the 13th Executive Committee of the Malaysia Motorcycle & Scooter Dealers Association (MMSDA) here today.
Dr Wee said that married Chinese couples who are starting families are generally practical and would choose “quality over quantity” in terms of family size.
"For example, when I was studying in university, my fees were RM540 per year, whereas Montessori fees for a child are now RM550 per month. You see the difference, it is very big," he said.
Besides having to spend more on education these days, Dr Wee, who is also MCA deputy president, said that parents are more willing to spend more on better quality healthcare and medical services.
"I do not think they would simply want to reproduce. It would be unfair to ask them to produce more children," he said in response to a question on how to increase the number of births among the Chinese community.
Dr Wee said that other communities, such as Malay families, particularly in urban areas, do not have large families.
"Even Malay families are not as big as (they used to be), where each family had between eight and 10 children. Nowadays, they don't exceed five.
"Malay families in urban areas don't go for family size first," he said.
The Department of Statistics Malaysia recently revealed that the proportion of Chinese people in the population shrank to 23.2 per cent this year.
This is a drop of 0.2 per cent from last year's 6.6 million Chinese in the country.
On July 14, the department announced that Malaysia’s population grew by 1.3 per cent from 31.6 million in 2016 to 32 million this year.
It also revealed that Indians and Others remain at 7.0 per cent and 1.0 per cent of the population respectively.
On a separate matter, Dr Wee said the government will consider MMSDA's request to lower the excise duty for motorcycles, and allow dealers to charge more than one per cent deposit of the sales price of bikes.
He said the request was made following an increase in the price of motorcycles which are the main mode of transport for many in the lower income group.
"About 137,076 motorcycles were registered with the Road Transport Department in the first three months of this year, compared to only 135,282 in the first three months of last year,” Dr Wee added.
Present at the meeting was MMSDA president Wee Hong.