Kuala Lumpur (VNA) - The Malaysian government expects the economy to expand 5.5-6.0 percent this year in line with the forecast by Bank Negara Malaysia.

Malaysia's national news agency Bernama quoted Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng as saying at the Shariad Investment Fair on July 20 that Malaysia is an open, diversified economy and even with the adverse impact of the ongoing global trade war, the country will be growing by at least 5.0 percent for the next several years.

According to Lim, the Malaysian capital market grew 12.6 percent to RM3.2 trillion last year. The conventional and Islamic capital market capitalisation grew by 14.4 percent and 11.9 percent respectively, while fundraising through the equity market grew to 21.7 billion RM in 2017 from 12.8 billion RM the year before.

He added that the bond and sukuk markets expanded by 10.1 percent to 1.3 trillion RM.

“The year 2018 has been a difficult one for Asian equity markets, but performance of the domestic market has been encouraging amid a sea of red.

Data from Bloomberg shows that the Malaysian securities market is remarkably resilient compared to regional peers in Singapore, Jakarta, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Shanghai, he said.-VNA

VNA