KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysia’s trade continued its remarkable achievement in October 2021, registering another round of record-high monthly values for trade, exports, imports, and trade surplus, said International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali.
He said total trade expanded by 26.5% to RM202.61 billion compared with October 2020, breaching the RM200 billion mark for the first time, and making it the ninth consecutive month of double-digit growth since February 2021.
“Exports rose by 25.5% to RM114.43 billion, making it the 14th consecutive month of year-on-year (y-o-y) expansion since September 2020,” he said in a statement issued by the Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation today.
He said imports were higher by 27.9% to RM88.18 billion, and trade surplus increased by 17.9% to RM26.25 billion.
The minister said export growth was boosted mainly by more shipments of petroleum products, manufactures of metal, electrical and electronic (E&E) products, chemicals and chemical products, as well as palm oil and palm oil-based agriculture products.
“Exports of manufactures of metal and E&E products registered the highest monthly value thus far,” he said.
Meanwhile, Azmin said exports to major markets, notably Asean, China, United States, European Union, and Japan recorded double-digit growth with exports to Asean registering the highest monthly value.
He said that on a month-on-month basis, trade, exports, imports, and trade surplus grew by 3.6%, 3.2%, 4.1%, and 0.5% respectively.
He said for the first 10 months of 2021, trade expanded by 23.5% to RM1.805 trillion from the same period last year.
“Exports surpassed RM1 trillion in just 10 months, increasing by 25% to RM1.004 trillion and exceeding overall exports in 2020,” he said.
Additionally, he said exports surpassed the highest annual value ever recorded in 2018.
Azmin said imports rose by 21.8% to RM801.17 billion, and trade surplus surged by 39.2% to RM202.58 billion.
“Trade, exports, imports, and trade surplus registered the highest value for the period,” he said.
He said major exports in October 2021 were E&E products, which were valued at RM42.01 billion, an increase of 8.8% from October 2020, and accounted for 36.7% of total exports.
The minister said this was followed by petroleum products valued at RM9.88 billion, a surge of 126% from October 2020, accounting for 8.6% of total exports, and manufactures of metal worth RM7.78 billion, a rise of 146.9% y-o-y, and constituting 6.8% of total exports.
He added that exports of palm oil and palm oil-based agriculture products grew 34.6% to RM7.36 billion and made up 6.4% of total exports; chemicals and chemical products jumped 58.9% to RM6.61 billion and accounted for 5.8% of total exports. – Bernama, November 29, 2021
