KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s manufacturing sales grew 15.5 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) to RM143.9 billion in December 2021, according to the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DoSM).
Month-on-month, sales value increased by 1.1 per cent.
Chief statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the growth in sales value for December 2021 was driven by the petroleum, chemical, rubber and plastic products subsector (up 19.9 per cent y-o-y), especially in the manufacture of coke and refined petroleum products industries.
"The expansion was also attributed to the food, beverages and tobacco subsector (up 19.0 per cent y-o-y), supported by the manufacture of food products industries as well as the electrical and electronics products subsector (up 18.4 per cent y-o-y), mainly in the manufacture of computer, optical and electronics products,” he said in a statement today.
According to the DoSM, sales value for export-oriented industries, which accounted for 72.1 per cent of total sales value, recorded an increase of 18.7 per cent while domestic-oriented industries posted an increment of 8.0 per cent in December 2021 compared to the same month in 2020.
The growth of sales value for export-oriented industries was in line with the double-digit growth registered in the external trade exports and the favourable price factors.
On a month-on-month comparison, export-oriented industries recorded a growth of 1.7 per cent while domestic-oriented industries declined 0.3 per cent.
Mohd Uzir said the total number of employees engaged in the manufacturing sector in December 2021 was 2.26 million, an increase of 2.7 per cent compared to 2.2 million employees in December 2020, contributed by the electrical and electronic products (5.3 per cent), wood, furniture, paper products and printing (3.4 per cent) and food, beverages and tobacco products (2.4 per cent) sectors.
DoSM said salaries and wages paid amounted to RM8.12 billion, an increase of 4.9 per cent or RM377.8 million in December 2021 compared to the same month of the preceding year.
Besides that, the sales value per employee increased by 12.4 per cent to RM63,688 compared with RM56,644 in December 2020.
Meanwhile, the average salaries and wages per employee was RM3,594 in December 2021.
Between January and December 2021, the sales value of the manufacturing sector increased by 15.5 per cent to RM1,554.7 billion compared to the same period in 2020 with the number of employees and salaries and wages recording a growth of 2.7 per cent and 3.0 per cent respectively.
Sales value per employee for 2021 also grew 12.4 per cent to RM688,053.
Meanwhile, in comparison with 2019 which was the pre-pandemic period, the sales value of the manufacturing sector increased by 13.0 per cent.
DoSM said subsectors which surpassed the sales value in 2019 were petroleum, chemical, rubber and plastic products (24.4 per cent), food, beverages and tobacco (21.2 per cent), electrical and electronics products (13.9 per cent) as well as transport equipment and other manufacturers (7.4 per cent).
Meanwhile, the subsectors that have not yet recovered from the pre-pandemic year were non-metallic mineral products, basic metal and fabricated metal products (-9.3 per cent), wood, furniture, paper products and printing (-7.2 per cent) and textile, wearing apparel, leather and footwear (-2.3 per cent). - Bernama
