Malaysian Q2 Current Account Surplus Widens

Sep 28, 2007 - Malaysia's June quarter current account surplus widened to 23.7 billion ringgit from 20.1 billion ringgit in the previous quarter, the department of Statistics said Friday.

The growth was mainly due to higher trade surplus on goods amounting to 29.1 billion ringgit, up from 27.6 billion ringgit in the earlier quarter. Services account was in surplus of 0.9 billion ringgit, compared to deficit of 0.5 billion ringgit in the previous quarter. Income account showed a deficit of 2.5 billion ringgit, improving from the earlier deficit of 3.1 billion ringgit. The net outflow on current transfers remained unchanged at 3.8 billion ringgit in the second quarter.

The department further said that exports expanded 4.6% to 138.6 billion ringgit in the second quarter, while imports climbed 4.4% to 115.9 billion ringgit.

For the first half year, the current account surplus reached 49.4 billion ringgit, sharply up from 24.0 billion ringgit last year. Trade surplus on goods fell 7.4% to 56.7 billion ringgit, from 61.2 billion ringgit over the same period. Services account showed a surplus of 0.3 billion ringgit in the first half year. This compared to a deficit of 5.4 billion ringgit posted last year. Meanwhile, the net outlay on government services improved to 0.1 billion ringgit from an outflow of 0.2 billion ringgit a year ago.