Malaysia’s economy grew 6.2% year-on-year in the third quarter, the strongest growth since the second quarter of 2014, the country’s central bank said.
Growth continued to be driven by domestic demand, particularly private sector spending, said Bank Negara Malaysia. From the supply side, the improvement was broadly based across all sectors. On a quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted basis, the economy grew by 1.8%, up from 1.3% in the second quarter of 2017.
For the third quarter, domestic demand increased 6.6% year-on-year, supported by continued expansion in both private sector expenditure and public sector spending.
All economic sectors registered better growth rates, with manufacturing expanding at the highest rate of 7%, followed by services (6.6%) and construction (6.1%).
Exports surged 11.8% year-on-year in the third quarter, supported by higher demand for manufacturing products from key trading partners.
Given the continued strong performance in the quarter, the central bank said the Malaysian economy is on track to register growth close to the upper range of the official projection of 5.2% to 5.7% in 2017.
Domestic demand is expected to support this expansion. On the external front, exports will continue to benefit from the favorable global demand conditions, the bank added.
Following the results, Malaysian independent think tank Socio-Economic Research Centre revised upward the country’s growth forecast to 5.8% in 2017 from 5.5% previously, marking the strongest yearly growth in three years.
“Robust domestic demand, continued upbeat exports as well as supportive fiscal and monetary accommodation delivered another quarter of superb growth,” the center said.
However, the pace of GDP growth will normalize to 5.1% next year, partly due to a technical high base effect, it said.
Photo: Luke Ma
