KUALA LUMPUR  -  Malaysia’s wholesale and re­tail trade hit an all-time high of 143.9 billion ringgit (30.21 bil­lion U.S. dollars) in December, official data showed Thursday. The Department of Statistics Malaysia said in a statement that the increase of 4.8 percent year-on-year for wholesale and retail trade in December 2023 was driven by the retail trade sub-sector, which rose 5 per­cent. Wholesale trade expanded by 4.4 percent, while motor ve­hicles grew by 5.9 percent.

As for the fourth quarter last year, the wholesale and retail trade rose 5.8 percent year on year to 428.8 billion ringgit, underpinned by the wholesale trade sub-sector, which in­creased by 5.4 percent. Mean­while, retail trade expanded by 4.5 percent and the motor ve­hicle sub-sector went up 12.3 percent. As for the full year of 2023, the wholesale and retail trade jumped 7.7 percent year on year to 1.7 trillion ring­git. This was spurred by retail trade, which increased by 9 percent, while wholesale trade expanded by 5.2 percent and the motor vehicles sub-sector grew 12.3 percent. 

MALAYSIA’S SERVICE SECTOR REVENUE UP 6.6PC ON YEAR IN Q4

Malaysia’s service sector revenue rose 6.6 percent year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2023 to 591.4 billion ringgit (124.1 billion U.S. dollars), official data showed Thursday. The Department of Statistics Malaysia said in a state­ment that the growth was contrib­uted by favorable performance in all segments of the service sector.

Wholesale and retail trade, food and beverage and accommoda­tion segments grew 5.9 percent, while information and commu­nication and transportation and storage segments increased by 8.1 percent. Professional, real es­tate and administrative and sup­port service segment expanded by 8.8 percent, while the private health, private education, arts, entertainment and recreation and personal services and other ac­tivities segment climbed by 12.3 percent. A quarter-on-quarter comparison showed that the total revenue for the service sector in Malaysia rose 1.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2023 as com­pared to the third quarter of the same year. The total revenue of Malaysia’s service sector in 2023 was 2.3 trillion ringgit, which is an increase of 8.4 percent as com­pared to the previous year.