KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s economy in the second quarter of the year
grew at a slightly faster pace, but below market expectations, as
prolonged weakness in the external environment remains a drag to
domestic economic activity.
Gross domestic product (GDP) for the three months to June grew 4.3%
year-on-year (y-o-y), sustained by domestic demand, as compared with
market expectations of a 4.7% y-o-y growth for the period in review, and
a GDP growth of 4.1% y-o-y in the first quarter of the year.
“While domestic demand in the Malaysian economy has remained strong,
the overall growth performance has been affected by the weak external
sector,” Bank Negara governor Tan Sri Dr
Zeti Akhtar Aziz said at a press conference.
She noted that the phenomenon was not unique to Malaysia, as growth
in several economies in Asia, particularly those that were
export-oriented, had also moderated in the second quarter, as the
prolonged weakness in the external environment had started to affect the
countries’ domestic economic activities.
“For the Malaysian economy, the prolonged weakness in the external
environment has affected the overall growth performance of the economy,
going forward,” Zeti said.
“While domestic demand is expected to remain firm, supported by
sustained private consumption, capital spending in the domestic-oriented
industries and the ongoing implementation of infrastructure projects,
the weak external in the first half of this year would affect our
overall growth performance for the year,” she added.
Consequently, Bank Negara has revised downwards the overall GDP
growth target for Malaysia in 2013 to 4.5%-5.0% from its earlier target
of 5%-6%.
“We are expecting a challenging environment, with little improvement
in the second half of this year,” Zeti said, adding that domestic
demand was expected to remain on its steady growth trajectory and would
continue to be supported by an accommodative monetary policy.
Meanwhile, Malaysia’s current account surplus for the second quarter
of the year narrowed to RM2.6bil from RM8.7bil in the preceding
quarter. This was due to lower goods surplus as well as sustained
services deficit and outflows in the income accounts.
Zeti said Malaysia would likely remain in a surplus position through
the year, as the expected recovery in external demand, albeit at a
moderate pace, would help improve the country’s current account balance.
In addition, Zeti said the Government was considering various
options to improve Malaysia’s current account balance. These include
scaling back some large projects that had high import content,
increasing the country’s economic competitiveness and diversifying its
export markets.
She said that Malaysia continued to enjoy a steady flow of foreign
direct investment, which could contribute positively to the country’s
current account balance.
Zeti and other Bank Negara officials during the Second Qtr 2013 GDP press conference in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday. - Sia Hong Kiau/The Star
On another note, Malaysia’s inflation, as measured by the increase in
consumer price index (CPI), remained modest in the second quarter of the
year. The CPI grew 1.8% y-o-y, compared with 1.5% y-o-y in the
preceding quarter, due to price increases in the food and non-alcoholic
beverages and housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels
categories
- Contributed by CECILIA KOK cecilia_kok@thestar.com.my
Malaysia can manage currency volatility
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia
had the capacity to manage its currency volatility, Bank Negara said,
as it brushed off concerns of an Asian contagion risk.
“We had
demonstrated our ability to handle such a weakness at the height of the
global financial crisis in 2008/09, and therefore, would be able to do
the same in the current environment,” the central bank governor Tan Sri
Dr
Zeti Akhtar Aziz said at a press conference.
In highlighting Malaysia’s strengths that would enable it to deal with
the present volatility, Zeti said: “Firstly, we have strong
intermediaries, and a well-developed financial market.
“Our bond
market is one of the largest in South-East Asia, and we have a strong
presence of institutional investors who can absorb any selling of our
Malaysian Government securities. In addition, our reserves level
currently is at its strongest ever and we have a low level of external
indebtedness.”
In line with the performance of some regional
currencies, Malaysia’s ringgit has weakened against the currencies of
major economies in recent months.
Year-to-date, for instance,
the ringgit has fallen around 7.7% against the US dollar to close at
3.2947 per US dollar yesterday, compared with 3.0580 per dollar at the
start of the year.
Said Zeti: “We are seeing highly destabilising
capital flows and this is within our expectations because we had
earlier seen huge inflows into our financial system, as experienced by
most emerging markets, when quantitative easing (by major developed
countries) took place. We received something like RM70bil in inflows in
search of higher returns.
“Now that there are discussions on
tapering the quantitative easing, some of these funds would return to
their respective economies, in particular, the United States. We expect
that there would be reversals (of capital).
“This is not the
first time we are seeing this phenomenon. Previously, at the height of
the financial crisis in 2008/09, we also saw huge surges of capital
flows. But then, deleveraging set in (as major developed nations
attempted to reduce their indebtedness), which resulted in a significant
reversal of funds, and that precipitated a depreciation in our currency
and a significant decline in our reserves.
“But we demonstrated
during that time that our financial system was able to cope with this
(volatile condition), and therefore, we would be able to do the same in
the current environment,” Zeti said.
She added that when global
economic recovery improved further, the country’s financial markets
would eventually move to reflect fundamentals.
“Our domestic
economic fundamentals are strong. We have been able to have strong and
resilient domestic demand, which grew at 7.2% year-on-year during the
second quarter of this year.
“The private-sector investment is
still growing at double-digit rates and investment activities are still
holding up well. We have low price pressure in this environment and our
labour market conditions remain stable,” she said.
- Contributed by CECILIA KOK cecilia_kok@thestar.com.my
Malaysia's Current Account Slumps In Q2, GDP Growth Picks Up
KUALA
LUMPUR: Malaysia's current account surplus plunged in the second
quarter on weakening exports, overshadowing a slight acceleration in
economic growth and highlighting the country's vulnerabilty to market
selloffs that have rocked several other Asian economies.
The Indian rupee hit
record lows this week and Indonesia's stock market and currency plunged
on concerns that their worsening current account deficits left them
exposed to an expected withdrawal of U.S. super-loose monetary policy.
Fears that Malaysia and
Thailand could join that club have pushed their currencies to
multi-month lows in recent days, raising concern that the market
contagion could spread to economically healthier countries in Southeast
Asia.
Data on Wednesday
confirmed that Malaysia's current account surplus is evaporating fast,
falling to 2.6 billion ringgit ($790 million) in the second quarter from
8.7 billion ringgit in the first three months and 22.9 billion ringgit
before that, reflecting plunging exports and solid imports.
Still, the decline was not as much as some economists had fears.
Economic growth
accelerated slightly to 4.3 percent in the April-June period from a year
earlier, helped by pre-election government spending and a pick-up in
activity after the May polls, but fell well short of economists'
expectations of 4.9 percent.
In a nod to the
deteriorating growth prospects, the central bank cut its forecast for
full-year growth to 4.5-5.0 percent from 5-6 percent.
Malaysia, which is
heavily dependent on its exports of commodities such as palm oil, could
soon be recording its first current account deficits since the 1997
Asian financial crisis.
"I think the era of strong double-digit current account surpluses is over," said
Lee Heng Guie, an economist at CIMB Investment Bank in Kuala Lumpur.
"Unless an export
recovery materialises and is supported by a revival in commodity prices,
the surplus will still be narrowing for the next two years."
CAPITAL OUTFLOWS
Central bank Governor
Zeti Akhtar Aziz
said that Malaysia was expected to maintain a current account surplus
this year, and could cope with the current "highly destabilising"
capital flows.
"This is not a new
phenomenon. We coped with it before," she said, adding that the economy
was expected to remain supported by strong domestic growth.
Sales of Malaysian bonds
by foreigners, who hold almost half of the country's government debt,
could be absorbed by Malaysian institutions including the insurance
industry, she said.
Other data on Wednesday
showed that inflation ticked up to 2.0 percent in July from 1.8 percent
in June, in line with market expectations.
Manufacturing output rose
3.3 percent in the second quarter after subdued growth of 0.3 percent
in the first, while mining activity picked up 4.1 percent after
shrinking in the first three months of the year.
Many businesses put
investment plans on hold in the first quarter ahead of the tense
national election in May that was narrowly won by the long-ruling
National Front coalition.
Investment has been rising strongly as Prime Minister
Najib Razak
pushes through his $444 billion Economic Transformation Programme aimed
at doubling per capita incomes by 2020, but that has also pushed up
imports, undermining the current account.
While economists note
that Malaysia has a much stronger external position than Indonesia, its
weaknesses include a stubborn fiscal deficit, a relatively high
government debt of 53 percent of GDP and one of Asia's highest household
debt levels.
Najib faces a possible
leadership challenge from within his ruling party in October, raising
uncertainty over his pledge to cut the budget deficit of 4.5 percent of
GDP. He has pledged to announce steps to improve the fiscal position in
his budget address in October.
Malaysia's ringgit has
tumbled more than 7 percent this year to three-year lows around 3.3 to
the dollar and is among Asia's worst performers this year. On Wednesday,
it weakened further ahead of the data, falling 0.2 percent to 3.2940.
"It is just a liquidity event that hurt everyone,"
Abdul Farid Alias, the chief executive of Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank), Malaysia's biggest bank by assets, told reporters on Wednesday.
"The fundamentals of the economy in Malaysia, of our organisation, remain strong."
The Malaysian data
follows Thai gross domestic product figures released on Monday that
showed a surprise contraction in second-quarter growth, partly due to
weakening exports.
Regional economies have
built up hefty foreign reserves and sharply reduced foreign currency
debt since they were devastated by the Asian financial crisis in 1997,
making them less vulnerable to flighty foreign capital.
Data from the Bank for
International Settlements shows Malaysia has enough reserves to cover
four times its short-term external debt, while Thailand has 6.8 times.
Indonesia has only 1.7 times.
Kelvin Tay, regional chief investment officer
Wealth Management Southern Asia-Pacific,
said that while Asian debt levels had risen since the 2008 financial
crisis, they were mostly sustainable because of higher growth rates.
"We have actually gone up
(in debt) but don't forget the economies here are at growing at 6.5-7
percent as a whole," he said. "If you have growth of that kind of level
you can certainly sustain the debt levels. If your growth falls to 4-4.5
percent then, yeah, you are in trouble."
Malaysia's central bank
left its key policy rate unchanged at 3.0 percent at its last meeting in
July, but warned that the weak global environment may hurt growth
prospects. However, a pick-up in inflation and further weakness in the
currency could prompt it towards a tightening bias- Reuters
Malaysia-Market Factors To Watch On Aug 21
NEW YORK: Following is a list of events in Malaysia as well as news
company-related and market news which could have an influence on the
Malaysian market.
GLOBAL MARKETS-U.S. bond yields retreat from 2-year peaks; Wall St recovers SE
Asia Stocks-
Indonesia near year-low; Thai stocks drop 2 pct WHAT IS HAPPENING IN
MALAYSIA,
IN TIMES LOCAL FOLLOWED BY GMT:
Statistics Department releases July 2013 Consumer Price Index at 1700pm (0900). *
Bank Negara Malaysia releases second quarter 2013 GDP at 1800pm (1000). Central bank governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz holds press conference earlier at 1545pm (0745).
Malaysia Airlines' Business Plan update,
Malaysia Airlines Academy, Kelana Jaya, 1200 pm (0400).
Maybank Group half-year financial results announcement, Menara Maybank,
Kuala Lumpur, 1300pm (0500).
MARKET NEWS
Nikkei tumbles to 7-week low on Fed uncertainty, emerging mkt fears
US STOCKS-Wall St bounces to end four-day skid; retailers gain
TREASURIES-Yields fall as buyers step in, emerging markets roiled
FOREX-Dollar slides against euro and yen ahead of Fed minutes;
PRECIOUS-Gold turns higher as dollar down ahead of Fed minutes;
U.S. oil drops on pipeline outage, contract expiration;
VEGOILS-Palm oil eases after rally, export demand caps losses.
MALAYSIA IN THE NEWS:
PREVIEW-
Malaysia Q2 GDP seen growing but current account in focus
Malaysian planter Kulim's offer blocked for
London-listed New Britain
Malaysia's Aug 1-20 palm oil exports up 12.3 pct -SGS
Malaysian Airline posts Q2 net loss of 175.98 million ringgit
Muslim Rohingya asylum seekers escape Thai detention centre
Malaysia's Aug 1-20 palm exports up 10.3 pct -ITS - Reuters
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