KUALA LUMPUR: The country's financial system and equity market have continued to function in a sound and orderly manner without any disruption to financial intermediation, and lending activities have run smoothly until now.
Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz said the Malaysian stock market recorded a total net foreign investment of RM6.6 billion up to now compared with the net capital outflow of almost RM313 billion for emerging Asia, excluding China.
"Besides that, Bursa Malaysia's net fund inflows are still solid with a total of RM7.2 billion up to end-September," he said during the question-and-answer session in the Dewan Rakyat today.
The finance minister was replying to a supplementary question from Datuk Seri Ahmad Maslan (BN-Pontian) on the latest developments in the country's capital markets, including stock and bond markets.
Tengku Zafrul said financing activities continued to function well with accumulated funds of RM72 billion up to end of August for the private bond market and RM118.7 billion for the government bond market.
"However, we need to be mindful of global developments that have also affected the country's financial market, including the interest rate hike by the US central bank amounting to 300 basis points so far (this year to a range of 4.25 per cent to 4.5 per cent). This is expected to increase further to 4.75 per cent by end-2023."
Consequently, said Tengku Zafrul, global equity markets were estimated to have incurred losses of US$9 trillion or RM41.9 trillion, and together with losses in the global bond market, losses amounted to around US$46 trillion or RM214 trillion.
He said while Bursa Malaysia, as tracked by the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI, had shrunk by 11 per cent up to end of September, stock markets in other countries had also declined, including South Korea, Hong Kong, the United States, Germany, France and China. – Bernama