Lim Guan Eng. Bernama file photo
KUALA LUMPUR: The government expects to hit the 5.5-6.0 per cent gross domestic product (GDP) growth target for this year in line with the forecast by Bank Negara Malaysia.
Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said Malaysia is an open, diversified economy and even with the adverse impact of the ongoing global trade war, Malaysia will be growing by at least 5.0 per cent for the next several years.
“The Malaysian capital market grew 12.6 per cent to RM3.2 trillion last year,” he told reporters at the Shariah Investing Fair 2018, here today.
Lim said the conventional and Islamic capital market capitalisation grew by 14.4 per cent and 11.9 per cent respectively, while fundraising through the equity market grew to RM21.7 billion in 2017 from RM12.8 billion the year before.
He added that the bond and sukuk markets expanded by 10.1 per cent to RM1.3 trillion.
“The year 2018 has been a difficult one for Asian equity markets, but performance of the domestic market has been encouraging amid a sea of red.
“While the Kuala Lumpur Composite Index has fallen 1.7 per cent year-to-date, data from Bloomberg shows that our market is remarkably resilient compared to our regional peers in Singapore, Jakarta, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Shanghai,” said Lim.
He said all of the mentioned markets have performed worse by dropping anywhere between 3.8 per cent and 17.7 per cent depending on the bourses, largely due to the ongoing global trade war.
The Shariah Investing Fair, organised by Bursa Malaysia Bhd seeks to raise public awareness and retail investments into the domestic stock market, especially Shariah-compliant assets.
The fair was first organised in November 2017, following the establishment of Bursa Malaysia-i, the world’s first end-to-end Shariah-compliant investing platform launched in September 2016. – Bernama