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DoSM: Malaysia’s business confidence dropped -21.3 pc in Q3; all industries pessimistic with retail gloomiest
KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 26 ― Businesses from all sectors in Malaysia are more pessimistic about their business conditions in the third quarter of 2021 or the months of July to September, the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DoSM) said today.
In its latest Business Tendency Survey, DoSM noted that businesses’ confidence indicator had fallen to -21.3 per cent in Q3 2021, which showed weakened confidence when compared to -3.1 per cent in Q2 2021.
Previously, the quarterly confidence indicator was -25.1 per cent (Q2 2020), -21.0 per cent (Q3 2020), before improving to -10.8 per cent (Q4 2020), and dipping slightly to -11.3 per cent (Q1 2021) and then improving to -3.1 per cent in Q2 2021.
In explaining the decline in business confidence for the months of July to September this year, DoSM noted that all the four sectors (Industry, Services, Construction, and Wholesale and Retail Trade) “anticipate unfavourable business conditions for the third quarter 2021 in light of severe and prolonged Covid-19 pandemic in this country.”
The wholesale and retail trade sector was the only sector that was positive in the second quarter of 2021 with a confidence indicator of 5.6 per cent, but this has completely changed as it plunged into negative trajectory with -39.4 per cent for the third quarter.
This is due to both subsectors, wholesale trade and retail trade, being “less confident towards their business situation in the next three months”, DoSM said.
The construction sector which was already the most pessimistic in the second quarter this year at -30.5 per cent, again was the most pessimistic as it anticipated its business situation to recede to -45.0 per cent for the third quarter this year.
The industry sector’s confidence indicator too fell from -1.5 per cent (Q2 2021) to -11 per cent (Q3 2021), while the Services sector fell from -6.1 per cent to -22.8 per cent during the same period.
As for expectations on their business performance for July to December 2021, all sectors were pessimistic on their business outlook for the next six months.
Out of the four sectors, the wholesale and retail trade sector showed the most pessimism.
Source: https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2021/08/26/dosm-malaysias-business-confidence-dropped-21.3-pc-in-q3-all-industries-pes/2000590