KUALA LUMPUR, May 4 — RHB Bank Bhd’s leading indicator suggests there is no evidence of a slowdown in Malaysia’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the second quarter of this year (2Q 2026) despite heightened geopolitical premiums.
Its group chief economist and head of market research Barnabas Gan said the approach also suggested a 5.3 per cent year-on-year GDP growth in 2Q 2026, in line with 1Q 2026’s clip.
“We keep our outlook for Malaysia’s annual GDP growth at 4.7 per cent in 2026, albeit a strong 2Q 2026 growth clip, if materialised, would suggest upside bias towards 5.0 per cent,” he said in a research note today.
Gan added that the index has guided us in formulating RHB forward-looking views on GDP momentum for Malaysia and has accurately predicted the past crises, including the dot.com bubble bust, global financial crisis of 2008, and COVID-19, a relative pickup in growth momentum in the second half of 2023, and the pace at which it will accelerate post the slowdown.
“The construction of this index is underpinned by our in-house machine-learning capabilities, enabled by big data and statistical expertise, whereby the index statistically leads GDP growth by two quarters,” he said.
