LEADING INDEX FALLS 2.1% TO 109.8 POINTS IN JUNE - DOSM

Malaysia's leading index (LI) declined 2.1% in June 2023 by recording 109.8 points as compared to 112.1 points in the previous year, indicating a moderate economic performance in the fourth quarter of 2023, said Department of Statistics Malaysia (DoSM).

The LI serves as a predictive instrument to foresee the economic direction in an average of four to six months ahead.

Chief statistician Malaysia Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said decreases in real imports of other basic precious and other non-ferrous metals (-32.1%) and real imports of semiconductors (-19.5%) contributed to the weakened performance.

Nevertheless, upticks were recorded by the number of housing units approved (68.2%), Bursa Malaysia industrial index (7.0%) and number of new companies registered (1.2%).

“Concomitantly, the monthly change of LI decreased 0.5% in the reference month as compared to 1.7% in May 2023.

“The decline in LI was underpinned by the negative contributions of five out of seven components, especially the number of housing units approved (-0.5%) and real imports of semiconductors (-0.4%),” he said in a statement.

Mohd Uzir said that looking at the smoothed long-term trend in June 2023, LI remained below the 100.0 points trend.

“This indicates that Malaysia's short-term economic outlook is likely to moderate, anticipating that the economic policy measures will offset the challenges in the economy,” he said.

Meanwhile, referring to the current economic scenario, the chief statistician said the coincident index (CI) recorded a growth of 1.6% to 123.2 points in June 2023 as compared to 121.3 points in the corresponding month the year before, driven primarily by the real contributions, EPF (17.8%).

Conversely, the CI's monthly performance softened to negative 0.9%, influenced by less favourable performance in all components except total employment, manufacturing (0.1%).