KUALA LUMPUR, July 4 — Maybank Investment Bank Bhd (Maybank IB) is estimating 100 basis point (bps) increase in the Overnight Policy Rate (OPR) for the period between the second half (H2) of 2022 and the first half of next year (H1 2023).

Chief economist Suhaimi Ilias said this was following Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) accommodative monetary policy process which began with the 25bps increment in May.

He expected BNM to announce 25 bps within this week’s monetary policy meeting (MPC) and another 25 bps by the fourth quarter 2022, and a further 50bps in H1 2023.

"Our estimation is every 25bps hike will basically shave real gross domestic product (GDP) growth by 0.2 percentage points spread over 12 months.

"And the implications of increasing the OPR include the raising of mortgage repayment by three per cent,” he said at a virtual Maybank IB H2 2022 market outlook briefing today.

Suhaimi said BNM would increase the OPR due to growing domestic demand and rising core inflation rate.

He said Maybank IB has revised upwards its inflation rate forecast for this year to 3.4 per cent from 2.7 per cent previously, and increased the inflation rate projection for 2023 to 4.1 per cent from 2.5 per cent.

"This was because we have incorporated higher prices of food items like cooking oil and chicken, starting this month following the higher ceiling price for standard whole chicken and the removal of the price subsidy for bottled cooking oil as well as the assumption of a fuel subsidy review next year,” he added. — Bernama