Overview

Leading Index dropped 4.0 per cent in July 2021, nevertheless effective economic and health strategies may revive the near-term economic outlook

The prolonged disruptions in the economy continued to affect the performance of the Leading Index (LI) which showed a declining trend in July 2021. On an annual basis, the LI tumbled 4.0 per cent to record 105.0 points in July 2021 (July 2020: 109.4 points). The 4.4 points downward shift was mainly driven by the reduction in the Number of New Companies Registered, with a total of 2,646 newly registered local companies in July 2021 as against 5,522 companies in the same month of last year. Besides that, the decrease was also influenced by the base effect from the previous year. Concurrently, the LI also posted a month-on-month decrease in July 2021 at negative 0.6 per cent primarily caused by Real Imports of Other Basic Precious & Other Non-ferrous Metals (-1.3%). Considering a weaker performance of LI in the reference month and the declining trend of smoothed LI growth rate since March 2021, it is expected that the Malaysia’s economic outlook is likely to be surrounded by uncertainty. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of various economic and health strategies alongside the cooperation of the people in adopting the new normal and adhering to the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) may revive the near-term economic prospect.

The Coincident Index (CI) as the proxy of current economic performance continued to show a higher downward trend year-on-year, which declined 5.2 per cent (June 2021: -3.1%). In the meantime, the CI registered negative 2.5 per cent month-on-month attributed by unfavourable performance in almost all of CI components, mainly Volume Index of Retail Trade (-1.5%).

The Diffusion Indexes for LI and CI remained below 50.0 per cent. The Diffusion index for LI unchanged at 28.6 per cent. At the same time, the Diffusion Index for CI slower to 16.7 per cent.

The complete indicators on Leading, Coincident and Lagging Indexes are shown in the following Table 4   .

The full publication of the Malaysian Economic Indicators: Leading, Coincident & Lagging Indexes, July 2021 can be downloaded through eStatistik Portal.

Released By:

DATO' SRI DR. MOHD UZIR MAHIDIN
CHIEF STATISTICIAN MALAYSIA
DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS MALAYSIA
 DrUzir_Mahidin        Dr_Uzir

24 September 2021
 

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