KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia recorded trade growth of 11% to RM204.99bil in February 2023 from the same month in the previous year as both export and import values rose to their highest for the month.
In a statement, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (Miti) said the country's exports rose 9.8% to RM112.28bil on the back of strong exports of petroleum products, electrical and electronic (E&E) products and liquefied natural gas (LNG)
Imports meanwhile increased 12.4% year-on-year (y-o-y) to RM92.71bil, giving the country a trade surplus of RM19.56bil in February.
Compared to January 2023, the trade surplus was up 7.9% while trade, exports and imports were lower 1.1%, 0.3% and 1.9% respectively, owing to the shorter working days.
According to Miti, the growth in the country's exports was underpinned by a 14.8% y-o-y jump in shipments to Asean countries to RM33.69bil, led by a 27.7% increase in export value to Singapore.
This helped to offset a 6% y-o-y decline in export value to China to RM14.36bil on the back of lower exports of iron and steel products, petroleum products as well as chemicals and chemical products.
Meanwhile, there was a double-digit expansion in exports to the US of 18.7% y-o-y to RM12.33bil on strong exports of E&E products.
By export sector, manufactured goods, which account for 85% of total exports, rebounded 9.5% y-o-y to RM95.4bil on robust exports of petroleum products and E&E products.
Exports of mining goods leapt 34.8% y-o-y to RM9.2bil on higher exports of LNG while expots of agriculture goods declined 9% over the year due to lower exports of palm oil and palm-oil based agriculture products.
For imports, there was a 3.3% y-o-y increase in the imports of intermediate goods following higher imports of primary fuel and lubricants.
The import of capital goods declined 0.3% y-o-y due to lower imports of non-transport capital goods and the import of consumption goods grew 1.2% y-o-y as a result of higher imports of primary food and beverages, mainly for household consumption.
