Malaysia’s 2023 moderate economic growth in sync with other Asean countries – DoSM

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s 2023 gross domestic product (GDP) growth is in tandem with other Asean countries which also showed moderate growth, said the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DoSM).

It highlighted that Singapore grew 1.1 per cent in 2023 from 3.8 per cent in 2022, Indonesia expanded by 5.1 per cent from 5.3 per cent while the Philippines recorded a 5.6 per cent growth compared with 7.6 per cent previously.

“Other developed countries also recorded modest growth such as South Korea at 1.4 per cent

(2022: 2.6 per cent) and United Kingdom 0.1 per cent (2022: 4.3 per cent).

“However, China expanded further at 5.2 per cent from 3.0 per cent in 2022 while the United States increased 2.5 per cent from 1.9 per cent in 2022,” it said in a statement.

Malaysia’s overall economic growth in 2023 grew 3.7 per cent versus 8.7 per cent in 2022 driven

by the services sector with a growth of 5.3 per cent, followed by the construction (6.1 per cent) and manufacturing (0.7 per cent) sectors.

The manufacturing sector grew at a slower pace following a higher base in the preceding year and weaker global external demand.

On the demand side of the economy, the growth was led by private final consumption or household expenditure increased by 4.7 per cent, followed by gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) at 5.5 per cent and government final consumption expenditure of 3.9 per cent.

“Private final consumption or household expenditure, which contributed 58.9 per cent to GDP,

grew 4.2 per cent in the fourth quarter (4Q) of 2023, backed by higher expenditure in transport (10.1 per cent),

food & non-alcoholic beverages (5.9 per cent) and housing, water, electricity, gas & other fuels (5.6 per cent.

“On quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted, the overall performance posted a decrease of 3.0 per cent (Q3 2023: -0.7 per cent),” chief statistician Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin commented.

He said GFCF grew by 6.4 per cent in the quarter, while government final consumption expenditure grew by 7.3 per cent led by higher spending on supplies and services.

On a quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted basis, the government final consumption expenditure increased by 0.6 per cent.

He also said that exports and imports declined by 6.3 per cent and 2.9 per cent respectively in 4Q.

Thus, net exports continued to decline by 35.6 per cent as compared to a decrease of 22.7 per cent in the preceding quarter.

On a yearly basis, both exports and imports declined by 7.9 per cent and 7.6 per cent, respectively, with net exports recording a decrease of 11.3 per cent in 2023. – BK