PETALING JAYA: Several economic indicators show that the economy is on a stronger footing, owing to the global economy’s recovery trajectory.

       Elaborating further on the latest economic scenario based on the recent economic indicators, Statistics Department chief statistician Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin (pic) said in October 2021, several key economic indicators continued to show positive trends in comparison to October 2020.

       On the external front, he said the country’s total trade has been increasing steadily and rose 26.5% compared with 25.5% in September this year.

       Exports increased 25.5% to RM114.4bil and imports grew 27.9% to record RM88.2bil, thus resulting in a trade surplus of 17.9%.

       In view of the industrial performance, he said the industrial production index (IPI) increased 5.5% as against October last year, driven by an increase of 8% in the manufacturing index and 4.1% in the electricity index.

       In line with the better performance indicated by the manufacturing index, Malaysia’s manufacturing sales surged 15.3% in October, mainly supported by petroleum, chemical, rubber and plastic products. Meanwhile, wholesale and retail sales for October inclined 5.4% year-on-year, the first increase since the implementation of the full movement control order (FMCO) in June 2021.

       The performance was fuelled by the wholesale trade subsector, which continued to record a positive growth of 4.4%, or equivalent to RM2.4bil, in October to attain RM55.8bil. Additionally, retail trade increased 5.1% while motor vehicles rebounded 10.2% following double-digit negative growths since the FMCO.

       Commenting on the labour market in October, he said, “The labour force situation remained stable as indicated by the increase in the number of employments during the month, while the unemployment rate fell to its lowest level since April 2020.”

       The labour force rose 1.9% or 304.3 thousand persons to record 16.26 million persons (October 2020: 15.96 million persons), thus registering a higher labour force participation rate at 68.5%, up by 0.3 percentage points as compared to the same month last year.

       The employment-to-population ratio, which indicates an economy’s ability to create employment, increased 0.5 percentage points to 65.8% in October.

       Meanwhile, Mohd Uzir noted that the unemployment rate declined 0.4 percentage points to record 4.3% compared to 4.7% in October 2020.

       He added that in terms of prices, during the month of October 2021, the consumer price index inclined 2.9% to 123.7 as against 120.2 in the same month of the preceding year.

       The producer price index of local production, meanwhile, increased by a double-digit percentage of 13.2% for the seventh consecutive month. The increase was mainly contributed by the mining index.