The Leading Index (LI) for Malaysia continued to increase 4.3 per cent in April 2024, achieving 113.1 points as against 108.4 points in the previous year. The fifth consecutive month of increases suggesting that the economy remained in a growing momentum. Improvements were observed in all components except for Real Imports of Semi Conductors (-1.5%). After a marginal decline of 0.5 per cent in March 2024, the monthly change of LI bounced back by 0.8 per cent in April 2024.
DOSM said this turnaround was contributed by the rising Number of Housing Units Approved (0.8%), Real Imports of Semi Conductors (0.2%) and the Number of New Companies Registered (0.2%).
The Department of Statistics (DOSM) that releases the data said looking at the smoothed long-term trend in April 2024, the LI remained above the 100.0 points, reflecting continued economic growth in the coming months supported by a robust domestic demand and a sustainable expansion of the Manufacturing and Services sectors.
The Coincident Index (CI) which measures the overall current economic performance, rose by 3.0 per cent in April 2024, reaching 125.4 points as compared to 121.7 points in the same month of the previous year. The continued double-digit increase in the Real Contributions, EPF (34.1%) was the main contributor to this rise. Referring to the monthly performance, the CI also increased by 0.3 per cent primarily backed by the increase in the Total Employment in Manufacturing (0.2%).
The Diffusion Index for LI showed an increase in April 2024 by registering 85.7 per cent as compared to 71.4 per cent in the previous month. Meanwhile, the Diffusion Index for CI decreased to 50.0 per cent as compared to 66.7 per cent in March 2024.
