Malaysia’s trade continued its remarkable achievement in October, registering another round of record-high monthly value for trade, exports, imports, and trade surplus. Trade expanded by 26.5% to RM202.61 billion compared to October 2020, breaching the RM200 billion mark for the first time, and was the ninth consecutive month of double-digit growth since February. Exports rose by 25.5% to RM114.43 billion, the 14th consecutive month of year-on-year (y-o-y) expansion since September 2020. Imports were higher by 27.9% to RM88.18 billion and the trade surplus increased by 17.9% to RM26.25 billion.
The export growth was boosted mainly by higher shipments of petroleum products, manufactures of metal, electrical, and electronic (E&E) products, chemicals, and chemical products as well as palm oil and palm oil-based agriculture products. Exports of manufactures of metal and E&E products registered the highest monthly value thus far. Meanwhile, exports to major markets notably ASEAN, China, the United States (US), the European Union (EU), and Japan recorded double-digit growth. Exports to ASEAN registered the highest monthly value.
On a month-on-month (m-o-m) basis, trade, exports, imports and trade surplus grew by 3.6%, 3.2%, 4.1% and 0.5%, respectively.
For the first 10 months of 2021, trade expanded by 23.5% to RM1.805 trillion from the same period last year. Exports surpassed RM1 trillion in just 10 months, increasing by 25% to RM1.004 trillion and exceeding overall exports in 2020. Additionally, exports surpassed the highest annual value ever recorded in 2018. Imports rose by 21.8% to RM801.17 billion and trade surplus surged by 39.2% to RM202.58 billion. Trade, exports, imports and trade surplus registered the highest value for the period.
