Leading index down 1.4 pct in Dec 2018

KUALA LUMPUR: The monthly change of Leading Index (LI) decreased 1.4 per cent to 117.3 points in December 2018 from 119.0 points in the previous month, says the Department of Statistics.

Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said based on the performance of the country’s economic indicators for the reference month of December 2018, Malaysia’s economy is likely to grow at a slower rate from April to June 2019.

The declined in LI was driven by the significant decrease in two components, namely Real Imports of Other Basic Precious & Other Non-ferrous Metals and Number of Housing Units Approved, which posted negative 0.5 per cent respectively.

“The annual change of LI also registered a negative growth of 1.7 per cent in the reference month,” he said in the “Malaysian Economic Indicators: Leading, Coincident & Lagging Indexes for December 2018” report released yesterday.

The LI is designed to monitor the economic performance for an average of four to six months ahead.

Meanwhile, the Coincident Index (CI) which examines current economic activity was unchanged in December 2018.

The increase in real salaries & wages in the manufacturing sector (0.2 per cent) and real contributions to the Employees Provident Fund (0.1 per cent) were offset by the decrease in capacity utilisation in manufacturing sector (-0.2 per cent) and Industrial Production Index (-0.1 per cent).

At the same time, the annual change of CI grew at 3.6 per cent as in the previous month. — Bernama