KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s industrial output surged by 6.1 per cent in July as all three major sub-sectors – manufacturing, mining and electricity – posted positive growth.
The Statistics Department said growth was led by manufacturing (8.0 per cent), electricity (7.9 per cent) and mining (0.2 per cent).
In the case of manufacturing, the expansion was mainly due to higher growth in major sub-sectors namely: electrical and electronics products (10.5 per cent); food, beverages and tobacco (19.2 per cent); and petroleum, chemical, rubber and plastic products (3.9 per cent).
The mining sector output rose due to an increase in natural gas although the index for crude oil fell during the month.
Meanwhile, Malaysia’s July manufacturing sales continued to record a strong growth of 22.2 per cent, rising to RM63.9 billion as compared to RM52.3 billion reported a year ago.
Year-on-year, the significant increase in sales value in July 2017 was due to the increase in E&E products (27.6 per cent), petroleum, chemical, rubber and plastic products (24.0 per cent) and non-metallic mineral products, basic metal and fabricated metal products (10.2 per cent).
These three sub-sectors contributed 80.4 per cent to the sales value of the manufacturing sector.