Positive data show Malaysia's economy to expand in H2

Malaysia should be better positioned to benefit from a recovery in the global economy, particularly trade.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's economy is poised to expand in the second half of 2017 based on the positive leading index (LI) and coincident index (CI) for May, says the Statistics Department.

It said on Monday the LI, which monitors the economic performance in advance increased in May 2017. It rose 1.2% to 118.6 points in May from 117.2 points in April.

Six of the seven LI components recorded positive growth led by real imports of other basic precious & other non-ferrous metal (0.6%) and number of new companies registered (0.2%). 

“The annual change of LI improved to 1.9% in May 2017 from 1.3% in the preceding month,” it said.

The department said the CI, which measures the current economic activity, rose by 0.9% in May.

The main components that contributed to the increase were real salaries & wages in manufacturing sector (0.3%), total employment in manufacturing sector (0.2%) and real contributions to the Employees Provident Fund (0.2%). 

“The annual change of CI recorded the highest growth in 2017, increased to 4.5%. Gross Domestic Product at constant price for the first quarter 2017 continued to expand with a growth of 5.6% as compared to 4.5% in the previous quarter.

“The annual change of LI and CI continued to show an encouraging growth in May 2017. Concurrently, both Diffusion Indexes above 80.0% in the reference month. This implies that the economic activity will continue to expand in the second half of 2017,” the department said.