Trade Performance : August 2018 and January - August 2018
Exports Sustained Above RM80 Billion Mark
Malaysia registered a total trade of RM162.01 billion in August 2018, a steady increase of 5.1% from RM154.14 billion in August 2017. Expansion in trade were seen with major trading partners, namely China, Hong Kong SAR, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, the Republic of Korea (ROK), ASEAN, the United States of America (USA) and the European Union (EU).
Exports in August 2018 remained above RM80 billion mark, totalling RM81.81 billion, a marginal contraction of 0.3% from RM82.02 billion recorded in the same month last year. Malaysia’s imports recorded a new high of RM80.2 billion, increasing by 11.2% year-on-year (y-o-y). This resulted in a 83.7% contraction in trade surplus to RM1.61 billion. This trade surplus marked the 250th consecutive month of trade surplus since November 1997.
On a month-on-month (m-o-m) basis, imports expanded by 3% while total trade, exports and trade surplus contracted by 1.2%, 5% and 80.7%, respectively.
For the first 8 months of 2018, total trade expanded by 6% to RM1.231 trillion compared to the same period in 2017. Exports increased by 6.3% to RM650.56 billion while imports grew at a slower pace of 5.6% to RM580.11 billion. Trade surplus for this period rose by 11.9% to RM70.45 billion compared to the same period last year.
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Trade Performance : August 2018 and January - August 2018
