Economy on expansionary path, says DOSM

SUBANG JAYA: Malaysia's economy is on expansionary mode based on the trend seen in the trade data for July and August this year, said Chief Statistician of Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM), Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin.
Uzir said the leading economic data showed that Malaysia's economy would experience an above-average growth this year, backed by the strong exports.
"Trade statistics showed double-digit export growth. The good things about our country, looking at the gross domestic product, is that the composition is broad-based, among them, we have services, manufacturing, mining as well as construction," he told reporters after the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between DOSM and Sunway University here today.
The MOU aims to promote education, research and training in statistics.
Uzir signed for DOSM and Sunway University Vice-Chancellor, Professor Graeme Wilkinson, signed for the university.
Uzir said DOSM hoped that Malaysia could record better performance in the services sector to boost the country's economic growth to 60% from 56% currently leveraging on encouraging tourism number.
On the collaboration, Uzir said, it would promote statistical literacy among Sunway University's students, and enhance their skills in data mining using a large-scale data set.
"The partnership would encourage DOSM officers to share the accurate methodology in producing and interpretation official statistics.
"This will surely increase statistical literacy among academicians and students and hoped this synergy would add value to DOSM community in improving skills mainly in journalistic and technical writing," he said.
Meanwhile, Wilkinson said, Sunway University was also in the midst of developing an industrial statistics course to meet the rising demand in data mining and data analytics.
He said given the vital role of statistics in an increasingly complex economy the collaboration with DOSM in deepening expertise in statistical sciences and sharing resources for research and training marked a milestone for the university in its quest for excellence in delivering quality education.
"We hope that the findings from relevant research and studies from the collaboration would also contribute to the country's National Transformation Programme," he said. — Bernama