August-October economic growth to remain favourable

PETALING JAYA: The growth of Malaysia’s economy is expected to remain favourable between August and October 2018 based on the findings of Malaysian Economic Indicators: Leading, Coincident & Lagging Indexes for April 2018.
The Statistics Department said the Leading Index (LI) indicators are designed to monitor the economic performance in average of four to six months ahead. The monthly change of LI increased 0.1% to reach 119.1 points from 119 points in March 2018.
Two main components of LI that contributed to this increase were number of housing units approved (0.4%) and number of new companies registered (0.2%). The annual change of LI also recorded a better growth of 1.4% as against 0.3% in the previous month.
The Coincident Index (CI) which examines the current economic activity, decreased 0.3% in the reference month. Capacity utilisation in manufacturing sector and volume index of retail trade were among the components that contributed to the decrease which posted negative 0.2%, respectively. The annual change of CI rose 2.8% in April 2018.
The Diffusion Index for LI showed an improvement for April 2018. However, the Diffusion Index for CI remained at 66.7% since January 2018.