Malaysia's economic growth to ease in Dec 2018-Feb 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's economic growth is expected to ease from December 2018 to February 2019, says the Department of Statistics Malaysia.

In the “Malaysian Economic Indicators: Leading, Coincident and Lagging Indexes August 2018” Report released today, Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the annual change of the Leading Index (LI) decreased 0.9 per cent in August 2018.  

The LI is compiled to provide a signal on the economy's direction for an average of four to six months ahead.

However, he said the monthly change of the LI increased by 0.3 per cent to 118.9 points, following a 0.1 per cent increase in July 2018.

“The three components of the LI which contributed to the increase are the Number of Housing Units Approved (+0.5 per cent), Real Money Supply M1 (+0.2 per cent) and Real Imports of Semi-Conductors (+0.2 per cent),” Mohd Uzir added.

Meanwhile, the department reported that the Coincident Index (CI), a measure of overall current economic performance, fell 0.3 per cent in August 2018 with Capacity Utilisation in the manufacturing sector (-0.3 per cent) as the main component that led to the decrease.

“The annual change of CI rose to 3.6 per cent in the reference month,” it added. - Bernama