DoS launches Social Accounting Matrix to facilitate fiscal analysis

PUTRAJAYA: The Department of Statistics (DoS) has launched the Social Accounting Matrix (MPS) which provides important inputs for income and expenditure distributions in fiscal analysis.

Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the MPS is a comprehensive data for a particular year that integrates economic and social statistics, as well as illustrates the relationship among various institutions, namely households, financial and non-financial corporations in the country with other countries.

“The MPS at the macro level provides an overview of Malaysia’s economic flows in one year, while at the micro level focuses on income distribution for households, especially workers’ compensation or salaries by strata, income, ethnic and gender categories,” he told reporters at the launch of the MPS yesterday.

The MPS is one of the statistical products commonly used by policy makers and researchers to measure the effectiveness of policy implementation affecting the country’s economy, including the flow of income sources and spending patterns for institutions.

Developed by the DoS since 2009 for internal arrangement, the MPS will be fined-tune continuously using the latest economic structure, including statistical findings from the economic and household censuses, Mohd Uzir said, adding that the statistics reports would be generated twice within five years.

In 2014, he said the MPS statistics showed that the total household income was RM638.8 billion with employees’ salaries and unincorporated business profits became a major contributor to the country’s total household income, accounting for 72.3 per cent.

“Of the total workers’ compensation (salaries) of RM365.3 billion for citizens, the majority was contributed by households in urban areas at 81 per cent while the rest from households in rural areas,” he said.

He added that for distribution according to the net income range, employees’ compensation for the highest, middle and lower income categories were RM92.5 billion, RM155.0 billion and RM117.8 billion, respectively. — Bernama