THE Malaysian economy is anticipated to start moderating due to the effects of global economic instability in the months ahead, the Statistics Department said today. 

Citing the Economic Outlook 2023 by the Finance Ministry, chief statistician Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the Malaysian economy is forecast to moderate between 4.0% and 5.0% in 2023, in line with the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) global forecast. 

In its World Economic Outlook report for October, the IMF projected the global economy to expand albeit at a more moderate rate of 2.7% next year.

Meanwhile, Uzir said the growth forecast for the Asian region was revised to 4.2% this year from 4.3%, and to 4.6% from 4.9% in 2023, based on the recent Asian Development Outlook Supplement for December 2022.

“This was due to the recurrent lockdowns in China, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and slowing global growth,” he said in a statement today.

On the domestic front, Malaysia’s Leading Index (LI) increased 0.4% to 109.6 points in October 2022 against 109.2 points in October last year.

However, looking at the smoothed long-term trend in October 2022, the LI started trending below 100 points.

On the latest macroeconomic performance, Uzir said several key indicators continued to register upward trends as compared with October last year, such as Malaysia’s total trade performance, which recorded a double-digit growth of 21.1% to RM245.2 billion from RM202.4 billion in October 2021. 

As for inflation, he said from the prices standpoint, Malaysia’s inflation in October 2022 increased 4.0% year-on-year, lower than the rate recorded in September 2022 at 4.5%, with the food group remaining as the main contributor by registering an increase of 7.1%. – Bernama, December 29, 2022.