KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's total trade continued to trend higher, expanding 39.8% year-on-year (y-o-y) in July 2022 with double-digit increases in both exports and imports.
According to a statement by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (Miti), the country's exports increased 38% to RM134.07bil while imports expanded 41.9% to RM118.58bil for a total trade value of RM252.65bil.
The trade surplus broadened 14.3% to RM15.49bil.
"The export growth was driven by higher demand for electrical and electronic (E&E) products, petroleum products as well as liquefied natural gas (LNG)," said Miti.
Exports to major trading partners comprising Asean, the US, the EU and Japan recorded double-digit growth.
Of note, trade with Asean surged 63% to RM73.31bil, with exports rising 55.6% to RM42.53bil, the highest monthly value on record.
On a segmental basis, exports of manufactured good rose 35.4% y-o-y to RM112.26bil due to higher exports of electrical and electronics products, petroleum products, machinery, equipment and parts and manufactures of metal, optical and scientific equipment as well as chemical products.
Outgoing shipments of mining goods doubled y-o-y to RM10.81bil on growing exports of LNG and crude petroleum.
Agriculture goods exports meanwhile increased 24.1% to RM10.52bil on strong exports of palm oil and palm-oil based agriculture products.
Driving the increase in imports, there was a 32.2% jump in intermediate goods following higher imports of processed industrial supplies, a 29.6% jump in capital goods and 33.2% increase in consumption goods.
Miti noted that despite the robust July figures, July's total trade, exports, imports and trade surplus were sequentially lower than in previous month, slipping 6.5%, 8.2%, 4.5% and 29.1% respectively.
Over the January to July 2022 period, trade was up 29.9% to RM1.608 trillion from the same period last year.
Exports and imports grew 27.8% and 32.5% to RM873.07bil and RM734.51bil respectively, while trade surplus climbed 7.4% to RM138.56bil.
