Malaysia’s economy doing fine, despite top trade partner China’s zero-Covid fallout and war in Ukraine: analysts
- China is Malaysia’s largest trading partner, accounting for 18.9 per cent of total trade; bilateral trade growing, but Malaysia’s global trade is stronger
- Diversified trading partners, supply chain helped; many economists think recession will not hit Malaysia and it can also weather Ukraine war storm
Beijing’s zero-Covid policy and troubles in the property market have had a “manageable” impact on the economy of Malaysia, whose largest trading partner is China, economists say.
“At first, we thought it would hit us hard as it is Malaysia’s largest trading partner, accounting for 18.9 per cent of our total trade, 15.9 per cent of our exports and 32 per cent of imports,” said Lee Heng Guie, executive director of the Kuala Lumpur-based Socio-Economic Research Centre (SERC).
But, he added, China’s economic slowdown and its impact on Malaysia “is still quite manageable”, as the country had diversified its supply chain and avoided relying heavily on China. Additionally, Malaysia’s exports to China had held up well. “That helped mitigate the downturn in China,” Lee said.
Yeah Kim Leng, economics professor at Sunway University, said the Chinese economic slowdown had “caused a softening of Malaysia’s trade with China” this year.
