Malaysia recorded a strong growth momentum in its April 2021 trade performance outperforming March.
Trade grew by 43.2 percent to RM190.76 billion compared to April 2020 while exports maintained above RM100 billon for two consecutive months, reaching RM105.62 billion and surged by 63 percent.
“This was the fastest growth since February 1998 and the eighth consecutive month of year-on-year (y-o-y) expansion since September 2020,” said Department of Statistics Malaysia.
Imports had also increased by 24.4 percent to RM85.14 billion and trade surplus surged by 663.5 percent to RM20.48 billion.
The expansion in exports was sustained by higher global demand primarily for electrical and electronic (E&E) products mainly semiconductors in tandem with increasing digitalisation and 5G technology development, rubber products as well as petroleum products
Exports to all major markets namely ASEAN, China, the United States (US), the European Union (EU) and Japan registered positive growth.
“On a month-on-month (m-o-m) basis, trade, exports and imports grew by 2.7 percent, 0.6 percent and 5.4 percent, respectively. Trade surplus decreased by 15.4 percent.
“Trade for the first four months of 2021 grew by 21.4 percent to RM696.46 billion, compared to the same period of 2020,” DOSM said.
Exports increased by 27.8 percent to RM387.81 billion and imports rose by 14.3 percent to RM308.65 billion. Trade surplus surged by 137.5 percent to RM79.16 billion.
