Malaysia GDP to exceed 5.5% in 2014

Bank Negara Malaysia expects the country's economy to exceed 5.5% for this year due to the strong performance recorded in the first six months of 2014, said Governor Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz.
She was quoted by Malaysian News Agency (Bernama) as saying Malaysia registered a strong performance with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth of 6.3% for the first half of 2014, compared with 5.5% recorded in the same period a year ago.
Zeti said the official projection figures for the GDP would be announced in the upcoming 2015 Budget.
Initially, the central bank has projected this year's GDP growth at between 4.5% and 5.5%.
Turning to this quarter's performance, she said the result was driven by positive numbers coming from the construction, manufacturing, services, agriculture and mining sectors.
Meanwhile, Zeti said the country's inflation rate was expected to remain at 3% to 4% for this year, as a result of the stable second quarter GDP growth of 6.4%.
However, for 2015, the inflation rate was expected to rise temporarily due to some price adjustments following the government's implementation of the six per cent Goods and Services Tax (GST) by April 1, she said.
"But the rate will come down and stabilise in 2016 to a long-term average number of 3%," she said.
Asked on next year's GDP projection figure after the GST implementation, the governor said the central bank would only release them after the government announced the full list of zero-rated items under the GST in the 2015 Budget in October.
"It is unlikely that the price adjustments will have any significant material impact on the GDP," she added.