Economy to strengthen between March and May

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is maintaining its economic growth outlook for Malaysia at 5.3% for 2018 and at 5% for 2019.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's economy will continue to strengthen between March and May of 2018 based on the latest indices, says the Statistics Department.

It said on Monday the leading index and coincident index showed a good performance in November 2017 as compared to the preceding month. 

“At the same time, both diffusion indexes remained above 50.0%,” it said, as it expects the economy will continue to strengthen in March to May.
 
The leading index, which monitors the economic performance in advance, expanded 1% in November 2017 to 121.3 points from 120.1 points in October 2017. 

Underpinning the growth were the number of housing units approved (0.5%); expected sales value in manufacturing sector (0.4%); real imports of other basic precious and other non-ferrous metal (0.1%) and number of new companies registered (0.1%). 

The annual change of leading index picked up to 4.5% as compared 3.2% in the previous month.

As for the coincident index -- which measures the current economic activity – it increased 0.5% in November 2017.

Notably, the increase was due to higher industrial production index (0.3%) and volume index of retail trade (0.2%). 

“The annual change of CI accelerated to 3.6% in the reference month as against 3.5% in the preceding month,” it said.