Malaysia's leading, coincident indexes show economy improving: gov't agency

KUALA LUMPUR, March 23 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia's economy is expected to continue to strengthen between May to July based on its latest leading index and coincident index, said the country's statistics department on Friday.

The government agency said in a statement that the leading index which monitors the economic performance in advance, registered a growth of 0.8 percent to 120.3 points in January 2018 from in December 2017.

Real imports of semi conductors and number of housing units approved were among the factors behind the increase.

The annual change of leading index rose to 2.1 percent as compared to 1.7 percent in the preceding month.

Meanwhile, the coincident index which measures the current economic activity, rose to 0.5 percent in January.

Three components that contributed positively to the increase were total employment in manufacturing sector which was up 0.3 percent; real salaries and wages in manufacturing sector that increased by 0.2 percent; and volume index of retail trade that rose 0.1 percent.

The annual change in coincident increased by 4 percent in the reference month as against 3.3 percent recorded in December 2017.

The leading index and coincident showed a good performance in January 2018 as compared to the preceding month. At the same time, both diffusion indexes remained above 50 percent. Enditem