Malaysia: Economy beats expectations with 4.9% 2Q GDP growth – ING

Prakash Sakpal, economist at ING, notes that Malaysia's GDP growth accelerated to 4.9% year-on-year in 2Q19 from 4.5% and was ahead of the consensus estimate of 4.7%.

Key Quotes

“Aside from government consumption, the contribution of all spending side GDP components – private consumption, gross fixed investment, and net trade – improved. But private consumption remained the key driver.”

“Services remained the key growth driver from the industry side, though the improvement in the manufacturing contribution is noteworthy.”

“Even as domestic demand continued to be strong and exports affected by the trade and tech war, the net trade contribution rose to 1.4 percentage points (ppt) from 0.9 ppt in 1Q. This also squares with a steady and strong current account surplus.”