Malaysia Q4 GDP growth up 7% on year; not likely to enter recession in 2023: central bank

[KUALA LUMPUR] Malaysia’s economy exceeded expectations to expand 7 per cent year-on-year in the fourth quarter, partly due to robust domestic demand, said the central bank on Friday (Feb 10).

The final figure was higher than an average forecast of 6.6 per cent by a group of 21 economists in a Reuters poll. Still, the Q4 growth was far less than the 14.2 per cent recorded in the third quarter, although that was largely due to a healthy rebound from 2021 when the country suffered due to the pandemic.

At a press conference, Mohd Uzir Mahidin, the chief statistician at the Department of Statistics Malaysia, noted that the fourth-quarter growth was still above the long-term average of 5.1 per cent.