April manufacturing sales have record growth

Value rises 72.5% from a year ago to Rm131bil

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia posted the highest ever growth in manufacturing sales value in April 2021, surging 72.5% from a year ago to Rm130.60bil, the Statistics Department said.

“On monthly basis, the sales value increased by 2.9%. The sharp increment of growth in April 2021 was also a reflection of recovery due to base effect from the implementation of MCO 1.0 last year,” it said in a statement yesterday.

Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the sharp increase was driven by transport equipment and other manufactures products (332.4%), electrical and electronic products (80.2%) and petroleum, chemical, rubber and plastic products (49.1%).

The manufacturing sector also reported an increase in the number of workers employed in April.

He said the total employees in the sector rose by 3% in April to 2,235,004 persons compared with 2,169,473 persons in April last year.

Salaries and wages paid amounted to Rm7.38bil, which was 8.2% higher or an increase of Rm560.20mil from a year ago.

The sales value per employee rose by 67.4% to record RM58,454 from a year ago.

The average salaries and wages per employee was RM3,304 in April.

Meanwhile, the country’s wholesale and retail trade surged 66.2% year-on-year (y-oy) to Rm111.1bil in April 2021 from 36.6% in April 2020, said the department.

According to Mohd Uzir, although this was the highest annual increase recorded, it reflected a recovery from the steep fall in April last year after a month of the first movement control order.

“Therefore (the performance for April 2021) should be interpreted with caution,” he said in the statement.

Recovering from the extremely low level of April 2020, news agency Bernama quoted Mohd Uzir as saying the the sub-sector that contributed the most was retail trade.

This sector increased 56.4% y-o-y Rm44.3bil.

This was followed by wholesale trade which expanded 40.5% y-o-y to Rm53bil.

“Motor vehicles also showed an uptick with an increase of 1,551.3% y-o-y to Rm13.8bil,” he said.

On a month-on-month (m-o-m) basis, Mohd Uzir said the sales value decreased

to 1.5% in April 2021.

In comparison with April 2019, which was before the Covid-19 pandemic, Mohd Uzir said wholesale and retail trade sales also showed positive growth of 5.4%.

“This was driven by the extra consumers’ disposable income due to the withdrawal of i-sinar and i-lestari.

“It was also due to the increase in commodity prices, such as palm oil and rubber,” he said, adding that vehicle sales tax exemption incentives also continued to motivate the purchase of motor vehicles.

In terms of volume index, he said wholesale and retail trade registered a y-o-y growth of 71.5%.

He said the expansion was supported by motor vehicles which jumped 1,687.4% y-oy.

“This was followed by retail trade and wholesale trade with a growth of 63.5% and 43.0%, respectively,” he said.

As for seasonal adjusted volume index, he said it rose 5.1% m-o-m.

“On monthly basis, the sales value increased by 2.9%. The sharp increment of growth in April 2021 was also a reflection of recovery.”

Statistics Department