Malaysia's October exports up 18.9% year on year to RM82.4b

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia’s exports for October 2017 saw stronger year-on-year growth of 18.9% to RM82.4 billion, surpassing the RM80 billion mark for the third time in 2017.
On a month-on-month basis, exports increased 5.3% from RM78.3 billion. In September, Malaysia’s exports grew 14.8% to RM78.3 billion year on year.
The strong export performance in October 2017 was underpinned by higher exports across major sectors namely electrical and electronic products (+16.9%), petroleum products (+21.4%), chemicals and chemical products (+17.5%) as well as palm oil and palm-oil based agriculture products (+7.9%).
International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed said total trade in October 2017 increased 19.8% to RM154.3 billion compared with the same month last year.
Malaysia recorded a trade surplus of RM10.6 billion in October 2017, up RM678.3 million or 6.9% from RM9.9 billion registered a year ago. It increased RM2.0 billion or 22.7% when compared with the previous month.
“The trade surplus of RM10.6 billion for that month is the highest since April 2016. Meanwhile, our total trade surplus from January to October this year rose 14.4% from RM70.1 billion to RM80.2 billion,” Mustapa said in a statement today.
Meanwhile, imports grew RM12.4 billion or 20.9% yoy to RM71.9 billion in October, attributed to higher imports of intermediate goods, consumption goods and capital goods.
For the first ten months of 2017, Malaysia’s total trade amounted to RM1.47 trillion, 21.5% increase compared to the similar period last year. Exports increased 21.1% to RM772.7 billion while imports grew 21.9% to RM692.5 billion.
Almost all key markets registered double digit export growth in October 2017, including Asean, which grew 19.5% to RM23.9 billion, China (+20.5% to RM11.5 billion), the US (+13.8% to RM8.0 billion) and Japan (+20.4% to RM5.9 billion). Exports to the European Union grew 9.3% to RM7.9 billion.
“Malaysia’s exports in 2017 thus far have been expanding beyond expectations. We believe that although our export growth will moderate next year due to high-base effect, it will still grow around 3.4% as projected by the Treasury, driven by continued demand for E&E products and commodities such as crude petroleum and palm oil,” said Mustapa.
MIDF Research said even though Malaysia’s export growth in the third quarter of 2017 was still on a robust pace, the growth rate is expected to moderate in the final quarter due to unfavourable base effect.
“Going forward, continuous strengthening of global demand and modest recovery in commodity prices will support our trade performance. Nevertheless, protectionist threat, geopolitical tension, and policy uncertainties in developed countries remain as potential headwinds for global trade in the near term,” it said.
Nonetheless, the research house foresees Malaysia’s external trade performance to continue expanding until the end of the year, thus boosting economic growth for the fourth quarter of 2017.