Malaysia’s exports in March rose 25.4 percent from a year earlier, above forecast, government data showed on Monday.
March’s exports were expected to rise 12.5 percent, according to 16 economists surveyed in a Reuters poll.
Imports in March grew 29.9 percent from a year earlier, the data showed. Analysts were expecting a 15.7 percent rise, according to 16 economists surveyed in a Reuters poll.
Malaysia’s trade surplus in March was 26.7 billion ringgit. Analysts had forecast a surplus of 22.8 billion ringgit.
Malaysia’s economy returned to growth in the fourth quarter last year with the central bank expecting the recovery to continue this year despite risks of further disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Gross domestic product rose 3.6 percent in the October-December period, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) said, faster than the 3.3 percent rise forecast in a Reuters poll and up from a 4.5 percent decline in the previous quarter.
Malaysia’s full-year economic performance expanded 3.1 percent in 2021, rebounding from the 5.6 percent drop in 2020, the country’s worst annual performance since the 1998 Asian Financial Crisis.
BNM said Malaysia’s economic recovery was expected to continue in line with improved global and domestic demand.
Risks remain to the downside, however, mainly due to concerns over “severe and vaccine-resistant COVID-19 variants” that could trigger new containment curbs “globally and domestically,” BNM Governor Nor Shamsiah Mohd Yunus told a news conference.
Malaysia has seen a resurgence in COVID-19 cases in recent weeks, mostly from the highly transmissible Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
However, the government has vowed not to reimpose lockdowns amid a ramped-up COVID-19 inoculation program.
Nearly 80 percent of the country’s 32 million population has received at least two doses of COVID-19 vaccine, while more than a third has received a booster.
Capital Economics analyst Alex Holmes said in a note the impact of new infections should be relatively mild and brief given high vaccination rates.
The economic recovery will also likely be boosted by the reopening of international borders, with Malaysia planning to end mandatory quarantine for inbound travellers on March 1, he said.
