The Leading Index (LI), which monitors Malaysia’s economic performance in advance, decreased 1.1 percent in April 2016 to 115.5 points from 116.8 points in March.

The decline was reflected by the slow momentum in all LI components, except real imports of other basic precious and other non-ferrous metal, and expected sales value in manufacturing sector which posted 0.1 percent respectively.

The annual change of LI in the reference month was slower than in March 2016, the Statistics Department said in its ‘Malaysian Economic Indicators: Leading, Coincident & Lagging Indexes April 2016' released in Kuala Lumpur today.

The Coincident Index (CI), which measures the current economic activity, decreased 1.1 percent in April 2016, Volume Index of Retail Trade (-0.5 percent) and Real Contributions to Employees Provident Fund (-0.4 percent) were among the four components that contributed to the decrease.

However, the annual change of CI remained at 1.1 percent in the current month.

The CI maintained its annual change in April 2016 while LI recorded a lower growth as compared to the previous month.

The Diffusion Index for CI reached 50.0 percent while LI was below 50.0 percent.

“Based on this scenario, it is expected that the economic growth will continue to expand at a slower rate in the near term,” it added.

- Bernama