The MSMEs’ growth has surpassed Malaysia’s GDP growth of 3.6% in 2023.

Chief Statistician Uzir Mahidin said the services and manufacturing sectors are the main contributors, which comprise 84.8% of the MSMEs’ GDP.

“The agriculture sector contributed 9.1% to MSMEs’ GDP, followed by the construction (4.5%) and mining and quarrying (0.5%) sectors,” he said in a statement.

Uzir said the services sector increased 6.5% in 2023 from 17.2% in the preceding year.

The performance was supported by steady growth in the main sub-sectors, namely wholesale and retail trade, food and beverages and accommodation (5.7%); finance, insurance, real estate and business services (6.3%); and transportation and storage and information and communication (10.6%).

The manufacturing sector recorded a growth of 1.5% (2022: 6%) and was influenced by positive growth in the food, beverages and tobacco (5%); and non-metallic mineral products, basic metal and fabricated metal products (5.3%) sub-sectors.

The value-added of MSMEs in the agriculture sector increased 1.3% in 2023, higher than the 0.9% growth in the preceding year.

The performance was supported by the rubber, oil palm, livestock & other agriculture (1.8%) as well as fishing (0.5%) sub-sectors.

Meanwhile, MSMEs’ value-added of construction and mining, and quarrying sectors also expanded by 5.8% (2022: 5%) and 4.9% (2022: 10.7%), respectively.

On another note, Uzir said exports of MSMEs stood at RM152.2 billion with a growth of 4.5% in 2023, slower than the 17.2% recorded in the preceding year.

He said MSMEs’ employment continued to register an increase, albeit at a slower annual growth of 3.5% compared to 3.8% in 2022, to record a total of 7.86 million persons from 7.59 million persons in 2022.

“Accordingly, the contribution of MSMEs to Malaysia’s employment in 2023 was 48.5%, which grew 0.3 percentage points from 48.2% in 2022,” he said.