The Malaysian Statistics Department said in a statement on Thursday that the leading index which monitors the economic direction in an average of four to six months ahead, showed a monthly negative growth of 1.7 percent, mainly dragged by expected sales value in manufacturing sector.
The annual change of leading index also showed a similar trend with a growth of negative 0.3 percent.
"However, the movement of the leading index anticipates economic momentum to continue growing and still on the right track," said the government agency.
Meanwhile, the coincident index which measures the current state of the economy, showed an increase of 0.3 percent from the previous month.
The gain was fueled by volume index of retail trade which outweighed the decline in total employment in manufacturing sector, industrial production index and capacity utilization in manufacturing sector.
The year on year change of coincident index also augmented to 3.1 percent in May.
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