D&B: Business sentiment in Malaysia to improve in 2Q17

The business sentiment in Malaysia will improve in the second quarter of this year, for the first time since the same period of 2016.

This is according to a survey by US business information provider, Dun and Bradstreet Inc.

Chief executive officer Audrey Chia said the survey is used as a measurement of D&B Malaysia’s Quarterly Business Optimism Index ( BOI) which showed an increase of 3.07 percentage points in the current quarter from 1.65 in the first quarter of this year.

“The second quarter of 2017 looks set to see a continuation of the cautious optimism expressed by the business community in Malaysia since the first quarter of last year,” she said.

She also said all six indicators, namely volume of sales, net profits, selling price, inventory level, employees and new orders, had moderated upwards on a quarteron-quarter (q-o-q) basis.

On a year-on-year (y-o-y) basis, Chia said the index moderated to 3.07 percentage points from 5.83 in the same quarter of last year.

“On a y-o-y basis, only two of six business indicators improved, which was the selling price, up 10.95 percentage points from 4.0, and inventory levels, rising to 4.98 percentage points from 4.5,” she added.

Chia said the government’s continued investments in public transportation projects and modest uptick in manufacturing activities is expected to bolster commercial confidence within both sectors in the coming months.

“However, we are still seeing signs of weakness in the financial sector despite the slight improvements.

“We expect the outlook for the sector to remain muted with the ringgit being caught in a vicious circle of intervention and depreciation, as well as a slowdown in both corporate borrowings and household loan growth in the nearterm,” she added. — Bernama