KUALA LUMPUR, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia's Industrial Production Index (IPI) increased marginally by 1.1 percent year-on-year in June, supported by growths in manufacturing and electricity, said its statistics department Friday.
The department said, the index of manufacturing for the month rose 4.5 percent, while the index of electricity expanded 3 percent.
The index of mining however declined 9.4 percent year-on-year, due to the falls in the natural gas index and crude oil index.
The major sub-sectors which recorded an increase in June were electrical and electronic equipment products (5.4 percent); petroleum, chemical, rubber and plastic products (3.4 percent) and non-metallic mineral products, basic metals and fabricated metal products (5.2 percent).
The IPI growth was lower than market expectations of 3.2 percent, according to MIDF Research.
The research house said in a note Friday, the declining trend was partly due to tepid growth in domestic exports which shrink by 0.8 percent year-on-year in Jun.
For the first half, average IPI growth recorded at 3.4 percent, also lower than that of the same period in last year.
"We lower our forecast on IPI growth from 4.3 percent to 3.8 percent for 2018. As guided by the recent Business Tendency Index data, we believe the IPI growth will be growing between 3.5 percent to 4.5 percent during the second half," it said.?
