MALAYSIA’S economic growth is expected to ease between January and March 2019, the Department of Statistics said.

In the “Malaysian Economic Indicators: Leading, Coincident & Lagging Indexes for September 2018” report released today, Chief Statistician Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the annual change of the Leading Index (LI) stated that the index decreased 1.7% in the reference month.

The LI is designed to monitor the economic performance direction in an average of four to six months ahead.

Concurrently, he said, the monthly change of LI posted a negative growth of 0.8% to 117.9 points in the same month as against 118.9 points in August 2018.

“This was due to the decline in real imports of semiconductors (-0.4%), real imports of other basic precious & other non-ferrous metals (-0.4%) and number of housing units approved (-0.3%),” he said.

Meanwhile, the Coincident Index (CI), which examines the current economic activity, decreased 0.7% in September 2018, said Uzir.

Three out of six components weighed down the performance of the CI, mainly the Volume Index of Retail Trade which slipped 0.9%, he said, adding that the annual change of CI grew 3.4% in the reference month.

The department noted that the Diffusion Index for LI performed better in September, at 57.1%, while the Diffusion Index for CI has remained at 83.3% since August. – Bernama, November 22, 2018.