KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 25 — Malaysia’s leading index (LI) declined 2.1 per cent in June 2023 by recording 109.8 points as compared to 112.1 points in the previous year, indicating a moderate economic performance in the fourth quarter of 2023, said Department of Statistics Malaysia (DoSM).
The LI serves as a predictive instrument to foresee the economic direction in an average of four to six months ahead.
Chief statistician Malaysia Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin said decreases in real imports of other basic precious and other non-ferrous metals (-32.1 per cent) and real imports of semiconductors (-19.5 per cent) contributed to the weakened performance.
Nevertheless, upticks were recorded by the number of housing units approved (68.2 per cent), Bursa Malaysia industrial index (7.0 per cent) and number of new companies registered (1.2 per cent).
“Concomitantly, the monthly change of LI decreased 0.5 per cent in the reference month as compared to 1.7 per cent in May 2023.
“The decline in LI was underpinned by the negative contributions of five out of seven components, especially the number of housing units approved (-0.5 per cent) and real imports of semiconductors (-0.4 per cent),” he said in a statement today.
Mohd Uzir said that looking at the smoothed long-term trend in June 2023, LI remained below the 100.0 points trend.
“This indicates that Malaysia’s short-term economic outlook is likely to moderate, anticipating that the economic policy measures will offset the challenges in the economy,” he said.
Meanwhile, referring to the current economic scenario, the chief statistician said the coincident index (CI) recorded a growth of 1.6 per cent to 123.2 points in June 2023 as compared to 121.3 points in the corresponding month the year before, driven primarily by the real contributions, EPF (17.8 per cent).
Conversely, the CI’s monthly performance softened to negative 0.9 per cent, influenced by less favourable performance in all components except total employment, manufacturing (0.1 per cent). — Bernama
