Last week’s highlights

• Ministry of Finance Malaysia (MOF) had released its 57th LAKSANA report last week.

• On June 15, Malaysian government announced the National Recovery Plan

• The FBM KLCI rose by 0.88% or 13.89 points for the week to settle at 1,589.05 points

• US industrial production (IP) rose by 0.8% mom in May

• The euro area annual inflation rate was 2.0% in May 2021, up from 1.6% in April

• UK headline inflation hit 2.1% in May, above the central bank 2.0% target level

• Japan's exports grew at the fastest pace since 1980 by 49.6% in May 2021

• Singapore’s total trade rose by 30.9% in May 2021

• Indonesia’s export posted double-digit expansion for the third straight month in May, a growth of 58.76% yoy

• Australia’s unemployment rate eased to 5.1% in May 2021

• Central banks of US, Japan, Indonesia, Taiwan, Switzerland, Norway and Turkey kept the interest rates unchanged, while Brazil hikes.

MALAYSIA ECONOMY

• According to the Ministry of Finance Malaysia (MOF) 57th LAKSANA report, under BNM-SMEs soft loan funds, a total of RM12.12bn was approved to 25,680 applicants. For the technical and digitalization initiatives, RM67.5m has been distributed to 13,869 applicants under the fund. As of reporting date, a total of RM787.61m had been channeled based on 2,193,480 claims to the front liners as allowance. Meanwhile, the government expects to spend up to RM8bn for the subsidy program in 2021, double from the preliminary allocation of RM3.78bn.

• On June 15, Malaysian government announced the National Recovery Plan (NRP), comprising four phases of an exit strategy from the Covid-19 pandemic. In phase one, only essential sectors are allowed to operate, while social sectors are closed. For the second phase, the list for essential sectors will be expanded, and the operation capacity allowed will be raised to 80% from 60% currently. The social sectors remain closed. Then, in the third phase, most of the economic activities allowed to operate except those deemed high-risk. The industries with fully vaccinated workers are allowed to operate at full capacity in this phase. Some social activities will be allowed to resume, and parliament can reconvene under strict standard operating procedures (SOPs). In the fourth phase, all economic activities and most social sectors will be allowed to resume. Interstate travel and domestic tourism also will be allowed but must adhere to the strict SOPs. However, those transitions only can be allowed based on three critical threshold assessments: 1) the number of daily cases of infection; 2) the capacity of the public healthcare based on bed utilization rates in the ICU wards; 3) the percentage of people that has completed two doses of vaccine injection. Based on the timeline announced, the first phase expects to end by late June, replaced by the second phase, which anticipates commerce in July-August. Then, it will continue by the third phase from Sep-Oct, subsequently the fourth phase in Nov Dec.

Source: BIMB Securities Research - 21 Jun 2021