Malaysia’s manufacturing sector sales fell 4 percent year on year to 147.4 billion ringgit (32.22 billion U.S. dollars) in June, after recording a growth of 3.3 percent in the preceding month, official data showed Tuesday.
The Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) said in a statement that the decline was primarily influenced by the food, beverages and tobacco sub-sector, which decreased by 14.6 percent, marking three consecutive months of double-digit declines.
The fall was also attributable to the contraction in the petroleum, chemical, rubber and plastic (-12.4 percent); and wood, furniture, paper products and printing (-1.1 percent) sub-sectors.
On a month-on-month comparison, the sales value increased marginally by 0.4 percent as against 146.8 billion ringgit recorded in May.
The sales value of export-oriented industries which accounted for 73 percent of total sales, dropped by 7.4 percent in June after registering a marginal increase of 0.1 percent in May.
Domestic-oriented industries, however, continued to cushion the decline in sales value by sustaining a positive trajectory since September 2021, expanding by 6.8 percent in June.
In the second quarter of 2023, the sales value of the manufacturing sector posted the first decrease since the second quarter of 2020 (-16.5 percent), registering a negative 1 percent as compared to the same quarter of the previous year.
The decrease was attributed to the food, beverages and tobacco sub-sector (-12.7 percent); as well as the petroleum, chemical, rubber and plastics sub-sector (-4.8 percent).
As for the first half, the sales value of the manufacturing sector reached 888.6 billion ringgit, expanded by 3.5 percent as compared to the same period in the preceding year. (1 ringgit equals 0.22 U.S. dollar)