KUALA LUMPUR: The Department of Statistics reveals that Malaysia's exports in April registered a decline of 23.8 per cent to RM64.9 billion year-to-year (y-o-y) which saw the largest drop since Sept 2009, during the global financial crisis in the same year.
Statistician chief Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the decrease was due to the shut down of most of the national economic sectors since the enforcement of the Movement Control Order (MCO) on March 18 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
"Re-exports was valued at RM18.6 billion registering an increase of 38.2 percent y-o-y and accounted for 28.7 percent of total exports.
"However, domestic exports decreased 35.4 per cent or RM25.4 billion to RM46.3 billion.
"Imports also registered a decrease of 8.0 percent y-o-y to RM68.4 billion," he said in a statement today.
He also said the country's imports in April 2020 exceeded the value of its exports mainly due to the lumpy imports which was valued at RM10.1 billion, resulting in a trade deficit of RM3.5 billion.
Mohd Uzir added such value was the first month of trade deficit since October 1997.
He said Malaysia's total trade stood at RM133.3 billion, decreased 16.4 percent y-o-y.
"This glooming situation can be also observed in the number of transactions, which amounted to 11.7 million transactions for the period of January to April this year compared to 14.3 million transactions for the same period last year.
"However, based on early indicators, Malaysia's trade could rebound favourably in May 2020 as businesses resumed their operation," he added.
The decrease in exports, Mohd Uzir explained, was attributed to lower exports to the European Union (-RM2.7 billion), the United States (-RM2.4 billion), India (-RM2.3 billion), Singapore (-RM2.0 billion) and Thailand (-RM2.0 billion).
However, he said exports increased to China (+RM488.1 million).
Lower imports were mainly from Singapore (-RM2.5 billion), the European Union (-RM2.1 billion), Thailand (-RM1.7 billion), Saudi Arabia (-RM1.6 billion) and Japan (-RM906.9 million).
"Meanwhile, higher imports were from the Republic of Korea (+RM9.9 billion) due to imports of floating structures.
"The main products which contributed to the decline in exports were electrical and electronic products (-RM7.2 billion), refined petroleum products (-RM1.4 billion), timber and timber-based products (-RM891.9 million), liquefied natural gas (-RM737.6 million), crude petroleum (-RM639.8 million), palm oil and palm oil-based products (-RM126.5 million) and natural rubber (-RM91.0 million)," he added.
Meanwhile, the decrease in imports by end use, he said, was contributed by intermediate goods and consumption goods.
"Imports of intermediate goods and consumption goods decreased by RM12.5 billion and RM793.5 million respectively. Nevertheless, imports for capital goods recorded an increase of RM6.1 billion."