Malaysia Economy News and Report: In June

1. Malaysia April Manufacturing Sales:
The sales value of the country's manufacturing sector recorded a double digit y-o-y growth in Apr at 19.6%. There are total of 77 out of 116 industries was covered by the survey of statistics department of Malaysia. Total 968773 employees engaged in the manufacturing sector in Apr 2010, increased by 25302 compared to Apr 2009.

2. Malaysia IPI
The IPI - Industrial Production Index was increased to 106.1, which rising about 10.1% y-o-y in Apr 2010. Manufacturing sector increased 14.3%, mining 0.8% and electricity 12.1%. Base on M-o-M, the index actually dropped 4.2% against March 2009

3. Foreign Reserve
Malaysia FR fell to RM312.21B as of May 31, from 313.92B at the end of Apr.

4. Exports
Malaysia total exports in Apr rose 26.6% y-o-y and import surged 27% respectively. The export contributed RM52.03B while import at RM42.8B.
Total trade was grew 26.7% to RM94.83B y-o-y, but m-o-m, both exports and import fell 12.4% and 5.1%. Obviously, export figures were due to Electronics Products which rose 21.5%, Crude Petroleum up 93%, Chemicals and chemicals product up 26.6%, and refined petroleum products up 50.4%.

5. Manufacturing Approvals
Total manufacturing investments declined sharpls by 34.6% y-o-y or 56.2% q-o-q or RM5.2B in 1Q2010. If excluding lumpy projects approved in the previous quaters, investment approvals have generally been on a downtrend since 4Q2007.
Domestic Investment approvals dropped 53.1% y-o-y in 1Q2010 as well.
Foreign Investment approvals fell 13.3% y-o-y or 64% q-o-q in 1Q2010.

6. May 2010 CPI
Consumer Price Index for May rose 1.6% to 113.3 from 111.7 y-o-y. The increase was due to all the main groups except clothing and footwear drop 1.7% and communication abt -0.4%. For m-o-m, CPI rose 0.3%.