KUALA LUMPUR: RAM Holdings, formerly known as Rating Agency Malaysia Bhd, expects continued overall positive sentiments of the local corporate landscape this year, on the back of the findings in its yearly RAM Business Confidence Index (RAM BCI).
“The continued overall positive readings of the RAM BCI across both corporates and small and medium enterprises (SME) going into 2018 suggest that the economic environment in Malaysia remains sustainable on its current track,” said its group chief executive officer Datuk Seri K. Govindan during a media briefing of the results this morning.
“This is especially so as capacity building activities, both in business expansion and capital investment, as well as hiring intentions continue to stand out as the most positive aspects. Given the longer-term nature of these activities, this highlight firms’ optimism towards Malaysia's medium term outlook.”
He, however, stressed that the SMEs, which make the lion’s share of the local corporate landscape would need support to realise their optimism into tangible results.
“SMEs business expansion often entails diversification into new businesses, moving upstream or downstream or even relocation to improve prospects,” said K. Govindan.
“Therefore for SMEs to contribute meaningfully to long-term economic development, it is important for the industry's stakeholders to continue to ensure SME’s access to funding.”
The RAM BCI survey gathered the responses of over 3,000 firms nationwide comprising of 974 large corporates and 2,500s SMEs over six months.
The survey focused on seven main sentiments for corporates namely turnover, profitability, hiring intentions, business expansion, capacity utilisations, investment intentions and access to bank finance.
RAM expects 2018 to see gross domestic product growth of 5.2 per cent, coming off the initial recovery rebound of 5.8 per cent in 2017.