“He said it was important for the Government to act to ease the burden on the people, and pointed out that the petrol subsidy borne by the Government had grown to RM45bil a year compared to RM35bil the previous year because of the world crude oil prices.”
Pak Lah said at the 62nd Anniversary of Umno

Converted to (12th May 2008) Exchange rates
NZD:18,379,725,813.85 NZD (NZD 18 bil)
USD:14,093,132,066.68 USD (USD 14 bil)
Those are some serious numbers there couple of billions in the 2 digits to subsidize petrol