KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's exports continued to expand in October 2022 although the trade surplus shrank by nearly a third as the value of imports to the country outpaced exports.
National Statistics Department chief statistician Datuk Mohd Uzir Mahidin announced today that Malaysia recorded 15% year-on-year (y-o-y) export growth of RM131.6bil in October, which lagged import growth of 29.2% to RM113.5bil.
This gave the country a total trade value of RM245.2bil, up 21.1% y-o-y, while the trade surplus shrank 32% to RM18.1bil.
Compared with September, exports in October shrank 8.7% while total trade and trade surplus fell 4.5% and 43.2% respectively. Imports in October increased 1% over the previous month.
According to Mohd Uzir, this represents the 15th straight month that the country's exports have been seeing double-digit growth since August 2021.
"The growth was in line with the increases in domestic exports and re-exports. Domestic exports totalled RM101.2bil (76.9% of total exports), grew by 10.8%, year-on-year (y-o-y).
"Meanwhile, re-exports registered RM30.4bil (23.1% of total exports), widened by 31.6%," he said in a statement.
Countries that saw the biggest increase in received shipments of Malaysian goods included Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Hong Kong and Indonesia.
Petroleum products saw the biggest increase in exports followed by electrical and electronic products, liquefied natural gas and crude petroleum.
On the imports side, the expansion by end-use was sustained by imports of intermediate goods, up 26.3% to RM60.6bil, while capital goods rose 42.1% to RM11.8bil and consumption goods increased 21.6% to RM8.5bil.
Over the January to October period, total trade increased 31.6%, supported by 28.5% growth in exports and 35.4% growth in imports.
The total trade surplus was up 1.3% y-o-y to RM205.6bil over the 10-month period.
INFOGRAPHIC EXTERNAL TRADE STATISTICS, MALAYSIA, OCTOBER 2022
