Indices show Malaysia's economy to expand at slower rate

Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's leading and coincident indices show growth will continue but at a slower rate in months ahead, says the Statistics Department.

It said on Friday the Leading Index (LI) which monitors the economic performance in advance grew 0.9% in May 2016. when it rose to 116.4 points from 115.4 points in April 2016. 

“This (growth) was driven by the increase in real money supply, M1 (0.5%), real imports of other basic precious & other non-ferrous metal (0.4%) and number of new companies registered (0.2%). 

“The annual change of LI remained negative but indicated an improvement in May 2016,” it said.

However, the Coincident Index (CI) which measures the current economic activity, decreased slightly 0.2% in May 2016. 

The department said the two components that contributed to the decrease were volume index of retail trade (-0.3%) and real salaries & wages in manufacturing sector (-0.2%). However, the annual change of CI grew to 1.5% as against 1.2% in the previous month.

“The annual change of LI and CI showed an improvement in May 2016. Concurrently, the Diffusion Index for LI above 50.0% while CI was below 50.0%. This implies that the Malaysia’s economy will continue expanding at a slower rate in the months ahead,” it said.