PETALING JAYA: The Investment, Trade and Industry Ministry (Miti) and its agencies say they will continue to remain vigilant to global external shocks, which could impact Malaysia’s growth trajectory.
This is despite the World Trade Organisation having made the forecast that the volume of world merchandise trade would grow 2.6% in 2024, a substantial rise from the contraction of 1.2% recorded in 2023.
Revealing trade figures for July, Miti said Malaysia’s trade for the month saw a healthy year-on-year (y-o-y) growth rate of 18.3%, the fastest since October 2022, touching RM255.9bil.
The expansion was buoyed by both exports and imports, with the former continuing its upward trend for the fourth consecutive month to record a 12.3% y-o-y growth amounting to RM131.2bil, as imports also stretched by 25.4% to 124.7bil.
The trade surplus amounted to RM6.4bil, marking the 51st consecutive month of surplus since May 2020.
In a statement released yesterday, Miti attributed export growth primarily to increased demand for palm oil and palm oil-based agriculture products, machinery, equipment and parts, petroleum products as well as electrical and electronic (E&E) products.
Elaborating, it said exports of manufactured goods, which comprised 85.5% of total exports grew by 10.6% to RM112.1bil, marking the fifth consecutive month of y-o-y expansion.
“The growth was supported by increased exports of machinery, equipment and parts, petroleum products, E&E products as well as manufacture of metal.
“Exports of agriculture goods (7.7% share) rose 32.8% to RM10.1bil, the fourth successive month of y-o-y growth, which was bolstered by higher demand for palm oil and palm oil-based agriculture products, supported by increased export volumes and prices,” it noted.
