“The growth reflected a resilient economy underpinned by increasing tourism activities and promising external demand,” Chief Statistician Uzir Mahidin said in a statement.

LI is used to predict economic trends for an average of four to six months ahead.

Uzir said Malaysia’s LI maintained its positive growth for six consecutive months, primarily supported by a sturdy gain in the Bursa Malaysia Industrial Index (up 31.8%), followed by real imports of other basic precious and other non-ferrous metals (up 20.6%).

On a month-on-month basis, he said the LI edged up 0.8%, mainly contributed by the number of new companies registered in May 2024 (up 0.5%).

On the coincident index (CI) which reflects the current state of the economy, the department said the index increased 2.2% y-o-y to 126.1 points in May 2024, mainly driven by the robust performance in the real contributions of EPF (up 8.7%).

On a monthly basis, it said the CI also registered an increase of 0.6%, bolstered by all components, except the capacity utilisation in manufacturing which shrank 0.2% from the previous month.