Financial Deepening and Its Significant Relationship to the Sustainable Development Pillars in Malaysia: A Conceptual Paper

Abstract

Financial deepening is believed to be crucial in various sectors for a country’s development. The availability of financial deepening is deemed to enhance the country's Sustainable Development (SD) pillars that will lead to the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2030. The issue of SDGs is often discussed among the ASEAN leaders in the United Nations Summit; however, the unbalance SD pillars that consist of economic real GDP, environmental quality and income inequality is still ongoing. Malaysia's Economic real GDP, environmental quality and inequality in income each year are not in line with the requirements of the SDGs achievement. This situation created a gap in balancing the SD's three pillars, as the financial deepening in Malaysia led to a mixed relationship with them. Thus, this study aims to investigate the relationship between financial deepening and the three SD pillars in Malaysia. The time series analysis and several estimation techniques will be employed and the secondary data chosen is from 1970 to 2019 for this study. The implications of the study will help the policymaker to nurture the future of Malaysia SD pillars and overcome any unexpected coming issues in the realization of SDGs 2030.