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Malaysia: Challenging conditions ahead due to CMCO
KUALA LUMPUR: The Statistics Department sees challenging conditions ahead for the Malaysian economy due to enforcement on the conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO) following the third wave of the Covid-19 outbreak.
Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said on Wednesday that Sabah, Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya – which are under the CMCO — contributed 46.6% to the economy last year.
Based on the economic performance for July and August, the third quarter was expected to be better than the second quarter despite the recurrence of the Covid-19 cases towards the end of September.
However, Dr Mohd Uzir highlighted that the CMCO in these states and any consequence on industries’ activities within these areas will have an impact to the overall country’s economic performance. The CMCO was imposed on Oct 14 for two weeks to Oct 27 and was extended until Nov 9 due to the rise in Covid-19 cases.
“Nevertheless, the targeted CMCO is seen as the best approach to mitigate the effect of the pandemic and to regain the economic recovery momentum, ” he said.
He added that in terms of economic perspective, Malaysia’s manufacturing sales in August totalled RM118.5bil compared to RM119.2bil in July.
August’s merchandise trade performance for both exports and imports declined by 14.5% and 2.2% when compared July. However, Malaysia’s merchandise exports in September recorded a strong annual growth of 13.6%.
He said imports continued to show signs of recovery with a smaller decline 3.6% due to better performance of capital and consumption goods.
The sales value of wholesale & retail trade expanded by 2.5% in August from a month ago, mainly driven by the growth in wholesale trade.
“This sector is gradually recovering on year on year basis with narrowing negative growth which is expected to improve further in September.
“Based on the recent Leading Index (LI), Malaysia is expected to continue the recovery phase by registering 108.5 points in August 2020 with an annual growth rate of 7.6%, ” he said.
Source: https://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2020/10/28/challenging-conditions-ahead-due-to-cmco