According to the Department of Statistics, the annual change of the Leading Index (LI) continued its uptick momentum with a growth of 3.2 per cent to 112.0 points in January 2024 as compared to 108.5 points in the same month of the previous year
This improvement it said was primarily supported by a sturdy gain in the Number of New Companies Registered (48.0%) and Real Imports of Other Basic Precious & Other Non-ferrous Metals (39.2%). Referring to the monthly performance, LI recorded 1.6 per cent in the reference month as against 0.3 per cent in the preceding month, owing to favourable performance in the Real Imports of Other Basic Precious & Other Non-ferrous Metals (0.7%).
In terms of the smoothed long-term trend in January 2024, the LI remained below the 100.0 points trend. Although it is still below the trend, the surge in the LI performance anticipates a more encouraging economic growth in the near term following the rebound in the external trade.
In view of the current economic situation, the Coincident Index (CI) continued its positive growth since September 2021 by registering 124.1 points, rose by 3.2 per cent as compared to 120.2 points in the same month of the previous year. The increase was contributed by the good performance of all components. The monthly performance of the CI turnaround to 0.2 per cent as compared to negative 0.2 per cent in the previous month, driven by the Industrial Production Index and Capacity Utilisation in Manufacturing, accounting for 0.3 per cent respectively.
The Diffusion Index for LI reached 57.1 per cent, which was better than 42.9 per cent recorded in the previous month. While the Diffusion Index for CI showed a downward trend in January 2024 by registering 50.0 per cent compared to 66.7 per cent.
