According to the Malaysian Department of Statistics (DoSM), Malaysia’s accumulated investment in fixed assets, or gross capital stocks, will increase by 2.7 percent year on year to RM5.17 trillion by 2020.
Simultaneously, the net capital stock, which symbolises the wealth of the Malaysian economy, reached RM3.22 trillion last year.
Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin says net capital stock expanded modestly at 1.8 percent, compared to 3.6 percent the previous year.
He adds that the value of the national capital stock has gradually increased since 2018 due to lowering Gross Fixed Capital Formation.
“The slow growth momentum of capital stocks is even more evident in 2020, with GFCF falling by 14.5 percent.
“This is due to fixed asset investments for all economic activities affected by the Movement Control Order (MCO), which was implemented over the past year following the outbreak of the pandemic,” he says in a statement today.
Mohd Uzir says the magnitude of this drop was the worst since the Asian Financial Crisis of 1998.
According to Uzir, capital stocks in the services sector grew slowly, at 2.5 percent, compared to 4.2 percent the previous year, based on economic activity.
Transport and storage, as well as information and communications, grew at a slower rate of 0.4 percent, while finance, insurance, real estate, and business services grew at a faster rate of 5.8 percent.
Petroleum, chemical, rubber, and plastic products, as well as electrical, electronic, and optical products, increased slowly at 0.8 percent and 0.6 percent respectively, resulting in a marginal increase of 0.4 percent in capital stocks for the manufacturing sector, compared to 3.5 percent in 2019.
Textile and wood products fell by 2.6 percent, while non-metallic mineral products, base metals, and designed metal products fell by 0.8 percent.
