The 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer, which polled the attitudes of more than 32,000 people across 28 countries, found economic optimism in Malaysia had fallen by 20 points, with only 35% of respondents in Malaysia agreeing with the statement “my family and I will be better off in five years”.
The government-business trust gap stood at 14 points, with the level of trust in business at 68 points and the level of trust in government at 54 points, in Malaysia. “For business, we have seen a 20-point increase on ethics in the past three years, attributable to its impressive performance during the pandemic, its attention to environmental, social and governance , and moral response to the war in Ukraine, with over 1,000 companies departing the Russian market,” he added.
“The consequence is a descent from distrust to acute polarisation in society. Without intervention, we will see a continued move from a crisis of institutional trust to a crisis of interpersonal trust,” he stressed.