Leading Index up 0.7 per cent in January 2017

KUALA LUMPUR: The Leading Index (LI), which monitors Malaysia’s economic performance in advance, rose 0.7 per cent to 117.8 points in January 2017 from 117.0 points in the previous month.

In a statement yesterday, the Statistics Department said, the growth was driven by the expected sales value in manufacturing sector (0.9 per cent), Bursa Malaysia Industrial Index (0.4 per cent), new companies registered (0.4 per cent) and real imports of semiconductors (0.2 per cent).

It said the annual change of LI improved further to 0.2 per cent in the reference month.

The Coincident Index (CI), which measured the current economic activity, rose 0.6 per cent in January 2017, it said.

The department said the two components of CI that posted the highest percentage decrease were real salaries and wages & wages in manufacturing sector (-0.3 per cent) and capacity utilisation in manufacturing sector (-0.2 per cent).

However, the annual change of CI increased 1.6 per cent in the current month, it said.

The department said the LI and CI showed a positive annual change in January 2017.

It said the Malaysian economy would continue to grow positively in the near term, supported by the level of both Diffusion Indexes above 50 per cent.