Experts: Govt initiatives and programmes record enormous Q1 growth

Bank Negara Governor Datuk Muhammad Ibrahim at the press conference after presenting the Bank Negara Malaysia First 2017 GDP.

KUALA LUMPUR: Consumer spending, business expansion and rising exports helped push Malaysia’s economic growth to its fastest pace in two years in the first quarter which ended March 31.

Gross domestic product (GDP), a measurement of all the goods and services produced at a given period in a country’s economy, expanded by 5.6% to RM280.1bil in the first quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago. Compared to the fourth quarter of 2016, the economy grew by 1.8%.