aseansources.com - Malaysia External Trade Statistics JUNE 2007

MALAYSIAN EXTERNAL TRADE STATISTICS MARCH & JANUARY - MARCH 2008 @

MARCH 2008
1. In March 2008, Malaysia posted a trade surplus of RM8.0 billion as compared with RM6.5 billion in the corresponding month of 2007. The current month's trade surplus expanded at RM1.5 billion (+22.3%) due to exports increased by RM2.6 billion (+5.3%) whilst imports rose RM1.1 billion (+2.6%). Total exports recorded an increase from RM49.0 billion in March 2007 to RM51.6 billion, while imports grew from RM42.5 billion to RM43.6 billion. 2. Electrical & electronic products continued to be the top export revenue earner, accounting for RM17.4 billion or 33.6% of total exports. Imports of intermediate and capital goods, which constituted 85.6% of total imports, went up by 4.1% to RM37.3 billion.

JANUARY – MARCH 2008
A. BALANCE OF TRADE 3. For the first three months of the year 2008, Malaysia registered a trade surplus of RM26.8 billion as against RM21.1 billion in the same period a year earlier. Exports recorded a growth of 9.8% from RM138.1 billion to RM151.7 billion, while imports expanded by 6.7% from RM117.1 billion to RM124.9 billion as compared to the same period last year. B. EXPORTS 4. Electrical & electronic products, Malaysia's largest export earner, contributed 36.9% of total export earnings. Export revenue from this group of commodities registered a decrease of 10.2% or RM6.4 billion. The major component, electronic integrated circuits, which accounted for 23.5% of total exports of electrical & electronic products, dropped by 25.6% or RM4.5 billion to RM13.2 billion during the period January-March 2008. 5. Palm oil & palm oil-based products, the second largest export revenue earner, accounted for 9.9% or RM15.0 billion of total exports. Palm oil, the main commodity in this group (72.4%), posted a surge of 103.0% or RM5.5 billion to RM10.9 billion. The growth was due to higher average export unit value of 63.0% or RM1,199.4 per tonne and export volume grew by 24.6% or 691,000 tonnes. 6 . Crude petroleum, ranked as the third largest export commodity and made up 7.0% of total exports, increased by 46.5% or RM3.4 billion to RM10.6 billion. The expansion was due to higher average export unit value of 45.9% or RM735.7 per tonne and export volume marginally increased by 20,000 tonnes (+0.4%). 7 . The fourth largest export earner, liquefied natural gas (LNG) which contributed 5.4% of total exports, gained 24.7% or RM1.6 billion to RM8.2 billion. This growth was attributed to a significant increase in average export unit value of 22.9% or RM237.8 per tonne while export volume increased slightly by 1.5% or 94,000 tonnes. 8. Petroleum products, the fifth largest export commodity, which accounted for 4.5% of total exports, soared by 100.6% or RM3.4 billion to RM6.8 billion. Timber & timber-based products, the sixth largest export earner, which represented 3.5% of total exports, shed by 6.4% or RM359.8 million to RM5.2 billion. C. IMPORTS
9. The composition of imports by end-use for the three major categories of imports was as follows: -

a. intermediate goods -	RM90.6 billion (72.5% of total imports); the main component being parts and accessories of capital goods (excluding transport equipment) amounting to RM41.5 billion or 45.8% of intermediate goods,
b. capital goods -	RM16.2 billion (13.0% of total imports), and
c. consumption goods -	RM7.4 billion (5.9% of total imports).

10. Comparatively, the above items recorded the following increases in value over the same period in 2007 as shown below:-

a. intermediate goods -	+RM7.3 billion (+8.7%),
b. capital goods -	+RM1.3 billion (+8.5%), and
c. consumption goods -	+RM0.4 billion (+6.0%).

D. DIRECTION OF TRADE 11. Malaysia's top five trading partners were the Republic of Singapore, the European Union, the United States of America, Japan and the People's Republic of China. These countries contributed 59.0% to Malaysia's total trade during January - March 2008.

* Note * It should be duly noted that, conceptually, the export and import figures in the external trade statistics are different from that in the goods account of the balance of payments compilation # This report can be accessed through the homepage of the Department of Statistics, Malaysia (http://www.statistics.gov.my) under Latest Releases: Malaysian External Trade Statistics. @ The March 2008 data is not fully validated; the validated data would be updated in the cumulative data columns of the April 2008 publication Source: Department of Statistics Malaysia (http://www.statistics.gov.my/)

MALAYSIAN EXTERNAL TRADE STATISTICS MARCH & JANUARY - MARCH 2008 @

MALAYSIAN EXTERNAL TRADE STATISTICS
MARCH & JANUARY - MARCH 2008 @