Govt expects to hit 2018 5.5%-6.0% GDP target

KUALA LUMPUR: The government expects to hit the 5.5%-6.0% gross domestic product (GDP) growth target for this year in line with the forecast by Bank Negara Malaysia.
Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng (pix) said Malaysia is an open, diversified economy and even with the adverse impact of the ongoing global trade war, Malaysia will be growing by at least 5.0% for the next few years.
"The Malaysian capital market grew 12.6% to RM3.2 trillion last year," he told reporters at the Syariah Investing Fair 2018, here today.
Lim said the conventional and Islamic capital market capitalisation grew by 14.4% and 11.9% respectively, while fundraising through the equity market grew to RM21.7 billion in 2017 from RM12.8 billion the year before.
He added that the bond and sukuk markets expanded by 10.1% to RM1.3 trillion.
"The year 2018 has been a difficult one for Asian equity markets, but the performance of the domestic market has been encouraging amid a sea of red.
"While the Kuala Lumpur Composite Index has fallen 1.7% year-to-date, data from Bloomberg shows that our market is remarkably resilient compared to our regional peers in Singapore, Jakarta, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Shanghai," said Lim.
He said all of the mentioned markets have performed worse by dropping anywhere between 3.8% and 17.7% depending on the bourses, largely due to the ongoing global trade war.
The Syariah Investing Fair, organised by Bursa Malaysia Bhd seeks to raise public awareness and retail investments into the domestic stock market, especially Syariah-compliant assets.
The fair was first organised in November 2017, following the establishment of Bursa Malaysia-i, the world's first end-to-end Syariah-compliant investing platform launched in September 2016. — Bernama