KUALA LUMPUR: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is maintaining its growth forecasts for Malaysia at 4.7% for 2015 and 5.0% for 2016.
In its Asian Development Outlook supplement issued on Thursday it said Malaysia’s GDP grew by 5.6% on-year in the first quarter (Q1, 2015).
The Manila-based development bank said the growth was underpinned mainly by private demand spurred by such one-off factors as flood relief early in the year and the frontloading of household spending prior to the implementation of the goods and services tax (GST).
“This anticipates growth in 2015 buffeted by the fall in prices for energy and other commodities.
However, government revenue streams are gradually diversifying away from oil as planned fiscal reforms remain on track.
“Growth forecasts are therefore maintained at 4.7% for 2015 and 5.0% for 2016,” it said.
On the inflation outlook, ADB raised its forecast for 2015 from 3.2% to 3.3%. For next year, it sees inflation rate rising at a slower pace of 3%, from an earlier forecast of 2.9%.
On Southeast Asia, ADB had trimmed the 2015 and 2016 growth forecasts for some of the economies, resulting in small downward revisions for the subregion as a whole.
Southeast Asia’s aggregate GDP is projected to grow by 4.6% in 2015, down by 0.3 percentage points from its earlier forecast while for 2016, it lowered the outlook by 0.2 percentage points to 5.1%.
