The headquarters of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Photo: malaysia-chronicle)Malaysia’s Department of Statistics said the country’s economy is likely to see growth in the months from February to April 2019.
The department said the monthly change of Leading Index (LI) augmented in October 2018, registering a growth of 1.2 percent to attain 119.3 points from 117.9 points in the previous month, primarily due to the rise in the real imports of other basic precious and other non-ferrous metals (0.4 percent).
On an annual basis, the LI showed an improvement from negative 1.7 percent in September 2018 to negative 0.7 percent in October 2018. The composite of LI is designed to monitor the economic performance direction in an average of four to six months ahead.
Recently, the World Bank revised down the forecast for Malaysia’s economic growth rate in 2018 to 4.7 percent from the previous 4.9 percent, due to fluctuations in the commodity and financial markets. The WB said a slower growth in world economy, along with rising concerns about fluctuations in the commodity and financial markets have affected the country’s economic prospects./.