Wholesale and retail trade sales value up 9% to RM98.1bil

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s wholesale and retail trade sales value rose 9% to RM98.1bil in October 2017 as compared to the corresponding period in 2016.

In a statement, the Statistics Department chief statistician Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the sales value consisted of wholesale trade worth RM48.5bil, retail trade (RM37.8bil) and motor vehicles (RM11.8bil).

The growth was contributed by the retail trade and wholesale trade businesses, he said.

“Volume index of the wholesale and retail trade improved 7.1% to 160.8% in October 2017 against October 2016, supported by the increase in retail trade of 8.5% and wholesale trade of 7.6%,” said Uzir.

The seasonally adjusted volume index of the wholesale and retail trade increased by 1.7% as com- pared to the preceding month.

On the breakdown, Uzir said the volume index of wholesale trade grew 7.6% to 175.8 points in October 2017 as compared with October 2016.

Month-on-month, the seasonally adjusted volume index, however, recorded negative growth of 0.4% against the previous month.

For the retail trade business, volume index rose 8.5% year-on-year to 160.2 points in October 2017, while the seasonally adjusted retail trade volume index recorded an increase of 2.4% compared to September 2017, he said.

Meanwhile, Uzir said the volume index of motor vehicles grew 0.1% to 123.2 points in October 2017, while the seasonally adjusted volume index increased 5.7% in October 2017 against September 2017. — Bernama