Malaysia’s economy will continue to strengthen between March to May 2018 given that the leading index (LI) and the coincident index (CI) improved in November 2017, the Statistics Department said.

The LI, which monitors the economic performance in advance, registered a growth of one percent to 121.3 points in November 2017 from 120.1 points in October 2017.

In a statement, the department said the increase was underpinned by the number of housing units approved (0.5 per cent), expected sales value in the manufacturing sector (0.4 per cent), real imports of other basic precious and other non-ferrous metal (0.1 per cent) and number of new companies registered (0.1 per cent).

The annual change of LI picked up to 4.5 per cent as compared with 3.2 per cent recorded last month.

The CI, which measures current economic activity, rose 0.5 percent in November 2017, due to an increase in the industrial production index (0.3 percent) and volume index of retail trade (0.2 percent).

The annual change of CI accelerated to 3.6 percent in the month under review, from 3.5 percent in the preceding month.

“At the same time, both diffusion indexes remained above 50 percent,” the department said.

- Bernama