Businesses Foresee More Favourable Environment In 3Q 2024 -- DoSM

Businesses are more optimistic about the business environment for the third quarter (3Q) of 2024, as indicated by the increase in the Department of Statistics Malaysia's (DoSM) confidence indicator to 4.7% from 0.7% in the second quarter (2Q).

All sectors forecast a brighter business outlook for 3Q 2024, according to chief statistician Datuk Sri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin.

“Business sentiment in the industry sector remains favourable with 4.1% in the reference quarter against 5.3% in the last quarter.

“This sturdy sentiment is contributed by the positive confidence from all industry sub-sectors, namely electricity and water (23.3%), mining (6.7%), manufacturing (2.0%), and agriculture (0.6%),” he said in a statement on the business tendency statistics for 3Q 2024.

Meanwhile, the services sector's confidence indicator rebounded into positive territory, 8.3%, in the current quarter from -0.9% in 2Q 2024, DoSM said.

“This turnaround was driven by improvement in the confidence indicators of the health (40%), followed by insurance (20.6%) and accommodation (16.7%) sub-sectors,” it said.

DoSM said the confidence indicator for the construction sector also turned positive by posting 2.2% in 3Q 2024 compared to -14.8% in the preceding quarter.

Similarly, sentiment within the wholesale and retail trade sector moved to a positive direction by registering 1.4% as against -4.1% in the previous quarter, it said.

On the prospect for the second half (2H) of 2024, DoSM said businesses foresee an encouraging business outlook with a net balance of 23.5% compared with the 14.9% registered for the April-September 2024 period.

Among the sectors, the services sector showed the highest net balance at 30.8%, up from 9.5% previously.

“The industry sector foresees a favourable business condition, with a net balance of 23.2% against 25.6% previously, while the outlook for the construction sector remains upbeat in the upcoming six months, with a net balance of 21.7% compared to 3.7% previously.

“The wholesale and retail trade sector has turned optimistic on the business situation for the next six months ending December 2024, with a net balance of 13.4% from -1.5% previously,” it said.