Statistics Dept: Work together to strengthen Malaysia’s socio-economic position

• May 13, 2020

KUALA LUMPUR, May 13 — The people, businesses and the government should work together to develop and strengthen the country’s socio-economic position, the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) said today.

Chief statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said in the context of the people, Malaysia has a population of 32.7 million people, with almost 80 per cent of them live in urban areas while the rest in rural areas.

“Out of 32.7 million people, we have 15.2 million jobs and one of the advantages of Malaysia is that we have people in the middle age category who are still active and this is the group that can generate demand and increase entrepreneurship,” he said on the announcement of the country’s first-quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) via DOSM’s official Facebook.

Mohd Uzir said from an economic perspective, Malaysia had 1.2 million active business growth spanning five major sectors namely agriculture, mining, construction, manufacturing and services.

Of the 1.2 million business growth, the agriculture sector had 21,000 jobs, mining (4,000), construction (89,000), manufacturing (61,000) and services (1.04 million).

About 90 per cent of the growth derived from the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

“In this matter, if we want to move the economy, everyone — the people, businesses need to work together.”

Malaysia according to him, is considered an open economy with the value of its international trade at nearly RM2 trillion. The country trades with nearly 200 countries.

Commenting on the outbreak of the Covid-19,  Mohd Uzir said the country began feeling the negative impact from the pandemic in March and indirectly disrupted the country’s economic growth in the first quarter of this year.

“The effects of Covid-19 began in December 2019, which were initially minimal in January and February but we’ve seen significant negative impacts in March 2020 especially when the government’s implement the movement control order (MCO) from March 18 to March 31, to prevent the spread of the pandemic.

“Based on our standardised framework, the country’s economic growth could grow at a higher rate and we estimated the country’s economic growth (if there was no Covid-19) will grow in the range of 3.9 per cent to 4.2 per cent,” he said

Earlier, DOSM noted that Malaysia experienced a slower first-quarter gross domestic product growth of 0.7 per cent compared with 3.6 per cent recorded in the previous quarter in 2019, due to the onslaught of the pandemic.

The growth in the quarter under review was supported by the services sector (3.1 per cent) and manufacturing (1.5 per cent), while other sectors registered negative growth.

Private final consumption expenditure were mainly on essential products such as food and non-alcoholic beverage, communication and housing, water, electricity and other fuels.

Mohd Uzir also said Covid-19 has unenviably impacted the tourism sector.

The value of Malaysia’s tourism sector, measured through the Tourism Satellite Account, showed the important sector contributed 15.2 per cent to the economy with a value of RM220.6 billion and employed 3.5 million people.

On the current account balance, the country recorded a surplus of RM9.5 billion in the first quarter of 2020 led by the surplus in goods account and the smaller deficit in primary income, whereby foreign companies in Malaysia earned a lower income of RM16.3 billion compared to RM25.1 billion in the previous quarter.

However, the country’s foreign direct investment (FDI) expanded to RM6.4 billion from RM5.4 billion in the previous quarter, mainly from the United States, Singapore and Ireland in manufacturing, financial and insurance, mining and quarrying sectors.

At the same time, Direct Investment Abroad (DIA) showed an increase to RM3 billion from RM1.1 billion recorded in the previous quarter with the United Kingdom, Indonesia and Canada were the main destinations. — Bernama

Source: https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2020/05/13/statistics-dept-work-together-to-strengthen-malaysias-socio-economic-positi/1865813