Industrial material price index down in Aug

29 Oct '07

2 min read

The Coincident Index (CI) at 122.6 points posted a slight drop of 0.1% in August 2007 as compared to 122.7 points in the previous month. Positive contributions were noted by gross imports (0.4%) and index of industrial production (0.1%). The six-month smoothed growth rate of the index slowed down from 3.6% to 3.0% in the current month.

The moderate level of 7.4% six-month smoothed growth rate of Leading Index (LI) was potrayed in August 2007 as compared to 8.8% in July 2007. The LI of 153.0 points in the current month is at the same level recorded previously.

Four components contributed positively, namely, total traded with eight major trading partners (0.4%), ratio of price to unit labour cost (0.4%), numbers of new companies registered (0.3%) and CPI for services (0.1%).

However, negative percentage change were registered by number of housing permit approved (-0.7%), industrial material price index (-0.4%) and Bursa Malaysia industrial index (-0.2%).

On the contrary, the Lagging Index (LGI) rose by 4.5% in August 2007, an upward gain from the previous month. All components registered positive change except 7-day call money (-0.2%). The index's six-month smoothed growth rate recorded a double-digit rise of 24.2% in the current month.

In the first quarter of 2008, the Malaysian economic scenario is expected to continue progressing as indicated by the six-month smoothed growth rate of LI.

Department of Statistics Malaysia

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