KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's official gross domestic product (GDP) data for the third quarter (Q3) of 2024 will not be officially announced until Nov 17.
But the market has gotten a feel of how much the economy will fare during the quarter, thanks to the maiden quarterly GDP advanced estimate released by the Statistics Department late last week.
The maiden advanced estimate showed the economy grew by a faster 3.3 per cent in Q3, versus 2.9 per cent in the preceding quarter.
This put the country's average GDP growth at 3.9 per cent for the nine-month period.
"The release of advanced estimate of quarterly GDP growth is practiced by major and regional economies like the US, EU, the UK, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore with variance versus actual GDP growth of between -2.7ppts (percentage points) and 0.5ppt," said Maybank Investment Bank Bhd's research team led by Suhaimi Ilias.
"Malaysia's Q3 2023 GDP advanced estimate is based on July-August 2023data/indicators covering services, manufacturing, mining, agriculture and construction sectors," it added.
The Q3 growth was driven by faster services, rebound in agriculture, moderation in construction and virtually stagnant manufacturing.
"Firmer services sector growth reflected pick up in wholesale and retail trade, transport and storage and business services sub-sectors as well as the tourism-related food and beverages and accommodation sub-sectors, which offset the declines in finance and insurance sub-sectors," Maybank IB noted.
Agriculture sector rebound was driven by growth in oil palm, livestock and other agriculture sub-sectors which negated the declines in fishing, rubber and forestry and logging sub-sectors.
Construction growth momentum was supported by civil engineering and specialised construction activities.
Manufacturing sector performance was dragged by electrical, electronic andoptical products, petroleum, chemical, rubber and plastic products and textiles, wearing apparel and leather products amid weaker external demand to offset the expansions of beverages and tobacco products and transport equipment, other manufacturing and repair that was driven by domestic demand.
Mining GDP contraction was due to lower production of natural gas that countered the higher activities in crude oil and condensate and other mining, quarrying and supporting services segments.
The 3.3 per cent is essentially in line with Maybank IB's monthly GDP tracker pointing to continued low single-digit growth in Q3 2023.
"Our monthly GDP tracker is based on less but high-frequency published dataset released ahead of the advanced estimate quarterly GDP.
"This includes monthly Industrial Production Index (covering manufacturing, mining and electricity output), Distributive Trade (covering wholesale, retail and motor vehicle trade volumes) and crude palm oil output which together account for 52.5 per cent of GDP.
"Therefore, our monthly GDP tracker figure for July-August 2023 average growth of 2.1 per cent year-on-year is understandably lower than the Q3 2023 advanced estimate of 3.3 per cent, which is also based on July-August 2023 dataset but of broader group of indicators on economic sectors/activities," it explained.