Malaysia: Weaker growth will bring rate cut – Standard Chartered

Malaysia’s GDP growth has come weaker than expected, therefore, analysts at Standard Chartered Bank are updating their forecast for the Malaysian economy. USD/MYR is trading at 4.1365.

Key quotes

“Malaysia’s Q4-2019 GDP growth came in much weaker than expected at 3.6% y/y and 0.5% q/q seasonally adjusted. As a result, full-year growth surprised to the downside at 4.3% y/y, versus our 4.5% expectation. This is the slowest annual growth since 2009.” 

“We downgrade our 2020 growth forecast to 4.2% from 4.5% previously.” 

“We expect the central bank to cut again in March by 25bps.”