Leading Index Down 1.9 Percent In July

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 23 (Bernama) -- The Leading Index (LI), which monitors Malaysia's economic performance in advance, decreased 1.9 per cent to 115.2 points in July 2016 from 117.4 points in the previous month. This was due to the decrease in all LI components except for the number of housing units approved and expected sales value in manufacturing sector which posted 0.2 per cent, respectively. The annual change of LI in the reference month was significantly slower than in June 2016, the Statistics Department said in its "Malaysian Economic Indicators: Leading, Coincident and Lagging Indexes July 2016" report. The Coincident Index (CI), which measures the current economic activity, declined by 0.9 per cent in the reference month. Two components that recorded the highest percentage decrease were capacity utilisation in manufacturing sector and Volume Index of retail trade which posted negative 0.4 per cent, respectively. However, the annual change of CI remained at 2.4 per cent in July 2016, said the department. The CI maintained its annual change in July 2016 but the LI registered a lower growth as compared to the previous month. The level of Diffusion Index (DI) for CI reached 50.0 per cent while the DI for LI was 42.9 per cent. "Based on this scenario, the economic growth is expected to continue at a slower pace in the near term," it said. --BERNAMA