Malaysia's Economic Growth To Continue Throughout 1h18

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 23 (Bernama) – The Leading Index (LI), which monitors economic performance in advance improved 1.6 per cent in December 2017, said the Department of Statistics Friday. However, the monthly change of LI registered a decrease of 1.8 per cent in the reference month. “The main components that caused this decrease were real imports of semi Conductors (-0.8 per cent) and number of housing units approved (-0.6 per cent). Meanwhile, the Coincident Index (CI) which measures the current economic activity, declined slightly by 0.2 per cent in December 2017 with the Industrial Production Index (-0.2 per cent) among the components that accounted to this decrease. The annual change of CI registered a growth of 3.2 per cent in the reference month. Overall, the annual change of LI and CI in December 2017 remained favourable at a slower momentum as compared with the previous month. “Supported by the level of both Diffusion Indexes sustaining above 50.0 per cent, it is expected that the economic growth will continue throughout the first half of 2018,” it added. -- BERNAMA