Malaysia maintains manufacturing resilience

Malaysia's IP report corroborates with the surprise increase in exports reported last week, which showed strong momentum in electronic exports. Within IP, growth performance has been most resilient in manufacturing, followed by mining activity. Within manufacturing, the performance of electronics, food products and petrochemicals has been strong.

"This would put the economy comfortably on track to hit our 4.5% growth forecast for 2015, with modest upside risks. Sectors such as palm oil have shown an acceleration in recent months, and we expect private consumption to improve in 2H 2015", says Bsrclays.

While market conditions in Malaysia have been volatile and the MYR has remained under pressure, growth conditions and real activity have been resilient. 

"BNM was generally cautious in its recent policy statement on global growth, and we now expect the central bank to keep rates on hold through 2015, and that it may only look to raise rates by mid-2016. Also, BNM is unlikely to undertake any interest rate defence of the MYR", added Barclays.