KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 18 — Research firm BMI, a Fitch Solutions company, has raised its 2025 Malaysia gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast to 4.7 per cent from 4.6 per cent previously, “which would be in line with the country’s pre-pandemic standards.”
It said the updated forecast would fall in the upper bound of the government’s forecast range of 4.0-5.0 per cent.
“Growth in Malaysia picked up faster than we had expected in the third quarter of 2024 (3Q 2024), prompting us to revise our 2024 forecast to 5.0 per cent, from 4.7 per cent previously.
“Malaysia’s real GDP expanding by a seasonally adjusted 1.8 per cent quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q) in the third quarter, slowing from 2.9 per cent in the second quarter, and this corresponds to 5.3 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) growth,” BMI said in a statement today.
While fixed investment growth picked up to 15.3 per cent y-o-y in the third quarter from 11.5 per cent in 2Q 2024, private consumption growth slowed to 4.8 per cent from 6.0 per cent during the previous period.
Meanwhile, the external outlook also improved, with export growth accelerating to 11.8 per cent in the third quarter from 8.4 per cent in the second quarter.
“As we expected, the outlook for the domestic investment landscape remained resilient, with gross fixed capital formation contributing 2.9 percentage points to the headline figure.
"The Department of Statistics Malaysia showed that the total value of completed construction activity rose for a third consecutive quarter to 22.9 per cent y-o-y in the third quarter, from 20.2 per cent in the second quarter,” it said.
BMI expects this momentum to persist in 2025 on the back of multi-year projects across the private and public sectors like the New Industrial Master Plan and National Energy Transition Roadmap, which will contribute to a higher realisation of investments.
— Bernama
