Malaysia

Trade

Malaysias exports and imports were at two-year decline since their all-time highest peak at US$ 234.1 billion in 2014 to US$ 189.4 billion in 2016 for exports, and US$ 208.8 billion in 2014 to US$ 168.4 billion in 2016 for imports. A total of 4,114 products were exported by the country to 217 partners, while it imported a total of 4,469 products from 198 countries.

Machineries and electronics sector dominated much of Malaysias exports and imports by 42.3 percent and 39.3 percent, respectively. Fuels (14.0 percent) seconded in exports, followed by vegetable (8.2 percent), plastic or rubber (6.7 percent), miscellaneous (6.0 percent), metals (5.3 percent), chemicals (4.6 percent), foods products (3.3 percent), wood (2.5 percent), stone and glass (2.2 percent), transportation (1.7 percent), and textiles and clothing (1.5 percent). On imports, fuels were only at 10.3 percent, followed by metals (8.7 percent), chemicals (7.0 percent), transportation (6.0 percent), plastic or rubber (5.8 percent), miscellaneous (5.0 percent), vegetables (3.4 percent), food products (3.6 percent), stone and glass (3.0 percent), and textiles and clothing (2.4 percent).

Based on stages of processing, capital goods dominated both the exports and imports at 42.4 percent and 44.5 percent, respectively. Export of consumer goods was significantly higher at 31.6 percent than imports at 23.2 percent. Export and import of intermediate goods did not differ much at 19.8 percent and 23.5 percent, respectively. Raw material export was very small at 5.9 percent, while import was only at 8.3 percent.

Top destinations of Malaysian products include Singapore (14.6 percent), China (12.5 percent), USA (10.2 percent), Japan (8.1 percent), and Thailand (5.6 percent), while top sources of imports include China (20.4 percent), Singapore (10.4 percent), Japan (8.2 percent), USA (8.0 percent), and Thailand (6.1 percent).

Imports of goods and services contributed to 60.8 percent of GDP, while exports of goods and services contributed higher at 67.2 percent.

Investment

Malaysias FDI inward flow declined from US$ 11.3 billion of 2016 to US$ 9.5 billion in 2017, which was even lower than 2015 US$ 10.1 billion. This was the first drop in FDI since 2010, as general decline of investments was experienced in Southeast Asia. The FDI stock, however, increased to US$ 139.5 billion from the previous years US$ 122.0 billion.

A larger portion of these investments were from China (21.0 percent), Switzerland (14.6 percent), Singapore (8.6 percent), Netherlands (7.0 percent), and Germany (5.3 percent).

Much of foreign investments were invested on service sector (52.6 percent), and about a quarter to manufacturing (25.4 percent), while a scanty portion went to mining (7.8 percent).

References:

https://wits.worldbank.org/countrysnapshot/en/MYS (Accessed on 29 October 2018)

https://en.portal.santandertrade.com/establish-overseas/malaysia/foreign-investment (Accessed on 29 October 2018)