Thailand
Malaysia’s May Industrial Production Index still strong
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s industrial production remained strong in May 2021 but the robust growth may not be sustainable, according to AmBank Research.
It noted that the Industrial Production Index (IPI) growth slowed down during the month with a smaller increase of 26% year-on-year (y-o-y) compared with the 50.1% y-o-y growth seen in April.
“The performance of the retail and wholesale sectors also showed a similar trend, improving by 28.3% y-o-y in May 2021, down from a 66.2% growth in April 2021.
“Although both performances in May were still robust, these would soften in June due to the latest lockdown to curb rising Covid-19 cases, ” it said in a note yesterday.
The research house said the continued robust growth in both indicators were due to a low base during the first year of the pandemic and some flexibilities imposed during movement control order in May 2021.
“The low base is dissipating. We expected the gross domestic product (growth) for 2021 to hover around 4.0% to 4.5%, ” it said. — Bernama