Economy to expand at slower rate

PETALING JAYA: The Malaysian economy is expected to expand at a slower rate in the months ahead, according to the Deparment of Statistics Malaysia.

In its report, its Leading Index (LI) posted a decline of 1.5% to 116.4 points from 118.2 points in the previous month.

The high percentage decrease were the real imports of other basic precious and other non-ferrous metal (-0.8%), with the annual change of LI showing a slow momentum in the reference month.

Meanwhile, the Coincident Index (CI) which measures the current economic activity grew by 0.2% in February 2016.

The annual change of CI rose to 1.1% against 0.9% in January 2016.

The annual change of LI showed a slight decrease from the previous month, however, the annual change of CI showed an improvement in February 2016.

Simultaneously, both Diffusion Indexes were above 50%.

“Based on this scenario, it is expected that the Malaysian economy will continue to expand at a slower rate in the following months,” the statistics department said.