Economy to expand at a slower pace in 4Q

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s economic growth momentum is expected to expand at a slower pace in the fourth quarter (4Q) of 2018 in view of the current moderate trend, says the Department of Statistics Malaysia.

In a statement titled “Malaysian Economic Indicators: Leading, Coincident & Lagging Indexes June 2018” released yesterday, the department said the monthly change of Leading Index (LI) recorded an increase of 0.5 per cent points to 118.4 points from 117.8 points in May 2018.

“The annual change of LI rose 0.3 per cent in June 2018 compared with negative 0.7 per cent in the previous month,” said the Department of Statistics Malaysia.

The LI indicators are designed to indicate the direction of the economy for the next four to six months.

The performance of the LI in the reference month was driven by an increase in real imports of other basic precious and other non-ferrous metals (0.6 per cent), number of new companies registered (0.5 per cent) and expected sales value in the manufacturing sector (0.4 per cent).

Meanwhile, the Coincident Index (CI), which examined the current economic performance, rose 1.2 per cent in June 2018.

“This was led by the increase in its two main components, namely the volume index of retail trade (0.9 per cent) and real contributions to the Employees Provident Fund (0.2 per cent).

“The annual change of CI improved 3.1 per cent in the reference month while the level of diffusion index for LI reached 42.9 per cent, which was better than 14.3 per cent recorded in the previous month,” the Department of Statistics said.

Meanwhile, the Diffusion Index for CI remained at 66.7 per cent since the first month of 2018. — Bernama