KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian businesses remain optimistic about the business condition in the first quarter of 2023 (1Q 2023) with the confidence indicator improving to 3.6 per cent from 3.2 per cent in the previous quarter (4Q 2022), according to the Department of Statistics Malaysia’s (DoSM) latest business tendency statistics report.
In a statement today, the department said among the sectors surveyed, services, wholesale and retail trade and industry sectors stayed optimistic about their future business condition, but the construction sector remained pessimistic with confidence indicator of -18.5 per cent for 1Q 2023 against -29.2 per cent in 4Q 2022.
It said the confidence indicator for services sector improved to 11.4 per cent in 1Q 2023 from 9.2 per cent in the previous quarter, while for wholesale and retail trade sector, it grew to four per cent from 1.9 per cent in the last quarter.
The industry sector also expected favourable business condition in 1Q 2023 with the confidence indicator staying in the positive territory at 1.1 per cent compared with 3.7 per cent in the previous quarter, it added.
Moving forward, DoSM said business perception for the first half of 2023 improved with a net balance of 12.1 per cent against 5.9 per cent for the period of October 2022-March 2023. – Bernama