KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysia’s wholesale and retail trade surged 66.2% year-on-year to RM111.1 billion in April 2021 from 36.6% in April 2020, said the Statistics Department.
Chief statistician Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin said although this is the highest annual increase recorded, it reflects a recovery from the steep fall in April last year after a month of the first movement control order.
“Therefore, (the performance for April 2021) should be interpreted with caution,” he said in a statement today.
Recovering from the extremely low record of April 2020, Uzir said the subsector that contributed the most was retail trade, which increased 56.4% y-o-y to RM44.3 billion, followed by wholesale trade which expanded 40.5% y-o-y to RM53 billion.
“Motor vehicles also showed an uptick with an increase of 1,551.3% y-o-y to RM13.8 billion,” he said.
On a month-on-month basis, Uzir said the sales value decreased 1.5% in April 2021.
In comparison with April 2019, which was before the Covid-19 pandemic, Uzir said wholesale and retail trade sales also showed positive growth of 5.4%.
“This was driven by the extra consumers’ disposable income due to withdrawal of i-Sinar, i-Lestari and the increase in commodity prices, such as palm oil and rubber,” he said, adding that vehicle sales tax exemption incentives also continued to motivate the purchase of motor vehicles.
In terms of volume index, Uzir said wholesale and retail trade registered a y-o-y growth of 71.5%.
He said the expansion was supported by motor vehicles, which jumped 1,687.4% y-o-y.
“This was followed by retail trade and wholesale trade with a growth of 63.5% and 43.0%, respectively,” he said.
As for seasonal adjusted volume index, he said it rose 5.1% m-o-m. – Bernama, June 11, 2021
