Malaysia’s manufacturing sales up 19.5% in May to RM61.9bil

But continued declines in energy prices, which weighed on manufacturing in Indonesia and Malaysia, could hurt these two economies, while in India, sluggish domestic demand offset strong foreign demand and led to a slowdown.

KUALA LUMPUR: ?Malaysia's manufacturing sales grew strongly by 19.5% in May 2017 to RM61.9bil as compared to RM51.8bil in the same month of 2016, due to increases recorded in its three major sub-sectors.

According to the Statistics Department, rises were recorded by electrical and electronics products (24%), petroleum, chemicals, rubber and plastic products (20.5%) and non-metallic mineral products, basic metal and fabricated metal (13.3%).

The three sub-sectors contributed 79.8 per cent to the sales value of the manufacturing sector, the department said in a statement today.

Meanwhile, total employees engaged in the sector in May was 1,051,923 persons, an increase of 2.7% or 27,164 persons as compared to 1,024,759 persons a year ago.

Salaries  and  wages increased by 13.3% to RM3.464bil.

Following this, the sales value per employee increased by 16.4% to RM58,863 from the same month of May 2016 - Bernama.