Malaysia’s economy shows signs of recovery: minister

(Photo: Dailyexpress.com.my)

Kuala Lumpur (VNA) - Malaysia's economic growth is expected to improve in the second quarter of this year and recover in 2021, said Minister in the Prime Minister's Department (Economy) Mustapa Mohamed.

He said even though analysts generally opined that the economic performance in the Q2 would experience a contraction due to the COVID-19 impact, however the economic indicators issued by the Statistics Department had shown signs of recovery in stages.

In fact, this was supported by a better labour market in June which registered an unemployment rate of 4.9 percent, down 0.4 percentage points compared with 5.3 percent in May 2020.

The number of unemployment had declined from 826,000 persons in May to 773,000 persons in June, according to the Statistics Department.

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have forecast Malaysia's gross domestic product (GDP) to record a growth of 6.3 percent and 6.9 percent respectively for 2021.

The expectation of a V-shaped recovery is following the moves by the Malaysian government which has reopened all economic sectors and implement a economic stimulus package and a recovery plan, he said.

Mustapa explained that taking into account the global economic environment which is very challenging, the country's economic growth would be more focused on the domestic economic activities./.