Malaysia's economy to grow within 6.3-7.5%

KUALA LUMPUR 7 July -  Malaysia’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2021 perchance be in a range of 6.3%-7.5% as the international agencies forecast.

The projections are steered by Malaysia’s continuously well managed COVID-19 crisis while nurturing the economy towards recovery and growth. 

Finance Minister, Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz said, Malaysia economy recovery will also depend on external factors.

“As Malaysia is an open economy, whether our growth will be a U-shaped or V-shaped recovery will also depend on external factors such as the recovery of our major trading partners as well as the restoration of global supply chains,” said him in a speech at Invest Malaysia 2020 today.

To date, Malaysia has reached 98% recovery rate of COVID-19 outbreak.

Zafrul said, various agencies expect Malaysia’s GDP to be within the range of -3.8% to 0.5% and it is within forecast as more than 150 countries are going to have negative growth.

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) has projected economic growth to be within -2.0% to 0.50%, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank are -3.8% and -3.1% respectively. 

Meanwhile, Malaysia’s capital markets have seen a steady growth by an average of 5.1% annually at over RM3 trillion which is twice the country’s GDP. 

This is represented almost equally in terms of total equity market capitalization, as well as the value of bonds outstanding.

“Within Asean emerging markets, we are the best performing market. Furthermore, as at market close yesterday, the FBM KLCI is close to recouping over RM200 billion in market capitalization, taking the market cap back to levels seen at the start of the year.

“Without a doubt, the capital markets have served as a key platform to mobilize savings and investments by efficiently allocating resources to finance businesses that create jobs and wealth,” he said.

Apart from that, Malaysia also sees 9% growth to RM823 billion end of last year in the total assets managed by fund managers.

It was driven by investments in unit trust funds, which saw average annual growth of 8.7% of the same period with a total net asset value of RM482 billion. 

“Daily volume of 11 billion shares was hit in the same month, a level not seen since 2010. This reflects investors’ optimism in the gradual reopening of Malaysia’s economy, underpinned by a low interest rate environment.

“As they say, behind every crisis there is an opportunity. We believe that investors returned to the Malaysian markets in May to invest in companies that would benefit not just from the reopening of the economy, but also from the raft of stimulus measures and tax incentives offered by the government,” he added. - DagangNews.com