Surprise jump in Malaysia exports
Malaysia's exports for June rose 5.4 per cent to 60.97 billion ringgit (Bt618 billion) compared with the same month a year ago on higher electrical and electronic sales to Hong Kong, the United States, Japan, Vietnam and China.
Economists in a Bloomberg survey expected a median 3.1-per-cent gain in exports following a 6.7-per-cent surge in May. However, imports unexpectedly slowed to a 3.6-per-cent growth against median expectations of an 8.8-per-cent rise. They rose 16.2 per cent in May.
For the first half of the year, exports rose 4.2 per cent to 351.21 billionr ringgit while imports grew by 8 per cent to 300.12 billion ringgit with the top 10 export destinations being Singapore, China, Japan, the United States, Thailand, Australia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia and South Korea.
Alliance Bank Malaysia chief economist Manokaran Mottain told StarBiz that despite the better-than-consensus forecast, the outlook for exports was still dim.
