Statistics Dept: Economic outlook remains favourable going forward

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s economy is expected to remain favourable between August to October 2018 based on the findings of the economic indicators, said the Statistics Department.

It said the monthly leading index (LI) indicator in April increased by 0.1% to reach 119.1 points from 119.0 points in March.

“Two main components of LI that contributed to this increase were the number of housing units approved (0.4%) and number of new companies registered (0.2%).

“The annual change of LI also recorded a better growth of 1.4% as against 0.3% in the previous month,” the department said.

The LI monitors the economic performance in average of four to six months ahead.

However, the department pointed out the coincident index (CI), which examines the current economic activity, slipped by 0.3% in April.

Capacity utilisation in the manufacturing sector and volume index of retail trade were among the components that contributed to the decrease which posted negative 0.2%, respectively.

It said the annual change of the CI rose by 2.8% in April 2018.

The diffusion index for LI showed an improvement for April 2018.

However, the diffusion index for the CI remained at 66.7% since January 2018.