The country's manufacturing sales rose 4.9 percent in April from a year earlier to RM25.8 billion but were down 11 percent from March , official data showed today.

According to earlier data, March manufacturing sales rose 10 percent year-on-year to RM28.6 billion and 10.4 percent month-on-month.

In a statement, the Statistics Department said a total of 987,862 persons were employed in the manufacturing sector in April, up 2.3 percent year-on-year and 0.1 percent month-on-month.

Total salaries and wages in April rose 7.6 percent year-on-year and 0.6 percent month-on-month to RM1.56 billion.

Wages up

In the four months to April, total manufacturing sales rose 11.4 percent year-on-year to RM107.5 billion, with total salaries and wages up 6.9 percent at RM6.2 billion.

"The double-digit growth that we've been seeing in manufacturing sales since December has now moderated significantly to a single-digit growth," Azrul Azwar, an economist at MIDF Sisma Securities told AFP .

"If this moderating trend persists, we may risk swelling the stockpile. This won't be good in the long-run," he said adding that he hoped the pace would soon improve.

Malaysia's industrial output in April beat market expectations and bucked the regional trend as it rose 11.8 percent compared with last year.

The central bank has cut its official gross domestic product growth forecast to 4.5 percent this year from previous estimates of 6.0-6.5 percent due to the Iraq war and the outbreak of the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome virus in the region.

The government announced a RM7.3 billion economic stimulus package on May 21 partly to mitigate the effects of Sars on the economy.