Bank Negara Governor Abdul Rashid said that the growth in the first quarter was mainly driven by the improvement of the labor market, the expansion of household consumption, the increase in investment and the export of electronic and electrical products.
However, the decline in oil and gas production and the return to normal of automobile sales suppressed the overall performance. Affected by the US tariff policy, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have lowered their growth forecasts for Malaysia this year to 4.1% and 3.9%, respectively, while analysts' average expectation is 4.2%.
The central bank expects full-year growth to be slightly lower than the original target of 4.5% to 5.5%, and will update the forecast in the next one or two months.
