Malaysian businesses expect slower growth in third quarter

PUTRAJAYA: Businesses expect growth to slow in the third quarter due to lower confidence levels after recording positive business performance in the second quarter of the year, according to the Statistics Department.

The department’s Business Tendency Statistics for the third quarter 2018 which presents statistics on business performance based on a survey conducted on a quarterly basis – said the second quarter of the 2018 was positive with an overall net balance of +3.6%, mainly contributed by services sector (+22.0%).

As for the third quarter, overall business performance is expected to grow at a slower pace with confidence indicator of +6.0% compared to the +7.8% in the previous quarter.

On a sectoral basis, services sector is expecting their business performance to continue to grow in the third quarter of 2018 with confidence indicator of +16.5% as compared to +8.6% in second quarter of 2018.

Other sectors such as industry and wholesale and retail trade which are also of the expectations of their business situation improving albeit at a moderate rate with smaller confidence indicators at +2.1 % and +3.6% respectively.

However, the construction sector expects their business situation to be less bullish with a confidence indicator of -7.7%.

“Majority of the respondents in all surveyed sectors which was 45.1%, anticipated that their gross revenue to increase while 44.4% expected unchanged. In contrast, 10.5% of the respondents foresee a decrease in gross revenue,” said chief statistician of Malaysia Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin.

On another note, business performance is expected to continue to grow for the period of July to December 2018 based on a net balance of +11.6%, supported mainly by services sector that was most optimistic with a net balance of +25.3% as compared to +15.3% for the period of April to September 2018.