Next week in BizHive Weekly

With the Malaysian economy performing well in the past few months despite the challenging global environment, as reported by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), BizHive

Weekly takes a look at the latest gross domestic product (GDP) figures for the first quarter of 2017 and analysts’ inputs on this:

“This government has taken many bold actions, and many tough decisions, to achieve Malaysia’s goal of becoming a high-income advanced economy. As a result, our economy grew beyond expectation of the government, as well as the World Bank at 5.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2017.” Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, Prime Minister

“It is certainly a good start for the year and the stronger growth momentum is expected to continue at least in the next two to three quarters. It is also likely to trigger upward revisionr of growth forecast especially for those projecting full-year growthg at the mid-four perp cent to five per cent range.” Dr Yeah Kim Leng, Sunway University Business School professor

“On the supply side, services, manufacturing, construction, agriculture and mining were performing comparatively better in this quarter, notably the agriculture sector, which last year recorded a contraction but this year registered a turnaround, supported by double-digit growth in both oil palm and rubber.” Dr Kamaruddin Mohd Nor, MIDF Research chief economist