KUALA LUMPUR: THE Leading Index (LI), which monitors the economic performance in advance showed a decrease of 0.6 per cent in April, pointing to a slower gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the second quarter.
The Statistics Department said the LI dropped to 118.6 points from 119.3 points in the previous month. Three out of seven components of LI recorded a decrease led by Real Money Supply, M1 (-0. 4 per cent), followed by real imports of semiconductors and number of housing units approved which registered negative 0.2 per cent, respectively. It said the annual change of LI declined to 0.9 per cent from 2.8 per cent recorded in the preceeding month.
Maybank Investment Bank said the LI trend indicates that growth will moderate in the second quarter as consumers and businesses adjust to life post-GST. “Indeed, forwarding the monthly LI by two months to estimate the quarterly LI, the implied second quarter LI moderated to 1.9 per cent year-on-year from 2.7 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter.” The Statistics Department said the Coincident Index (CI) which measures the current economic activity, decreased 1.1 per cent in April. “This was due to the decrease recorded in real salaries and wages in manufacturing sector (-0.5 per cent), volume index of retail trade (-0.4 per cent) and real contributions to EPF (-0.2 per cent).” The annual change of CI slowed to 2.2 per cent as compared to 4.4 per cent in March 2015. Maybank remarked the annual change of LI and CI remained favourable albeit a lower growth as compared to the previous month. The CI data confirms the immediate post-GST impact on the economy. “Supported by both Diffusion Indexes which were above 50 per cent, this suggests that the Malaysian economy will continue to expand at a slower rate in the months ahead.”
