Indicators suggest economic growth in Feb-April 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's economy is likely to grow in February to April 2019, based on the performance of economic indicators.

In the Malaysian Economic Indicators: Leading, Coincident & Lagging Indexes for October 2018 report, chief statistican Datuk Sri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the change of Leading Index (LI) augmented in October 2018 registered a growth of 1.2% to 119.3 points from 117.9 points in the previous month.

"This was primarily due to the increase of Real Imports of Other Basic Precious & Other Non-ferrous Metals (0.4%)."

According to the agency, the composite of LI is designed to monitor the economic performance direction in an average of four to six months ahead.

The annual change of LI showed an improvement from negative 1.7% in September 2018 to negative 0.7% in October 2018.

Meanwhile, the coincident index (CI), which reflects the current economic activity rose 1% in October.

"Two components that contributed significantly to the increase were Volume Index of Retail Trade (0.5%) and Real Contributions to EPF (0.2%)." 

The annual change of CI grew further to 3.9% in October 2018 as against 3.4% in the previous month.