Economy seen expanding at slower rate

PETALING JAYA: Malaysian economy is anticipated to expand at a slower rate in the next four to six months ahead, based on the findings of Malaysian Economic Indicators: Leading, Coincident & Lagging Indexes for May 2018.
The Leading Index (LI) indicators are designed to observe the economic performance in the short term.
The Statistics Department said in a statement that the monthly change of LI showed a negative growth of 1.1% to 117.8 points in May 2018 from 119.1 points in April 2018, mainly due to the 0.5% decrease in the number of new companies registered.
It said the annual change of LI also registered a decrease of 0.7% in the same month against 1.4% in April 2018.
However, the Coincident Index (CI), which reflects the current economic activity, improved in May 2018, registering a growth of 0.3% in the reference month.
“The annual change of CI rose 2.2% in May 2018. The Diffusion Index for CI remained at 66.7% since January 2018. Nevertheless, the level of Diffusion Index for LI was below 50% (14.3%),” it added.