KUALA LUMPUR: Businesses are more optimistic about the business environment for the third quarter (3Q) of 2024, as indicated by the increase in the Department of Statistics Malaysia's (DoSM) confidence indicator to 4.7 per cent from 0.7 per cent in the second quarter (2Q).

All sectors forecast a brighter business outlook for 3Q 2024, according to chief statistician Datuk Sri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin.

"Business sentiment in the industry sector remains favourable with 4.1 per cent in the reference quarter against 5.3 per cent in the last quarter.

"This sturdy sentiment is contributed by the positive confidence from all industry sub-sectors, namely electricity and water (23.3 per cent), mining (6.7 per cent), manufacturing (2.0 per cent), and agriculture (0.6 per cent)," he said in a statement on the business tendency statistics for 3Q 2024.

Meanwhile, the services sector's confidence indicator rebounded into positive territory, 8.3 per cent, in the current quarter from -0.9 per cent in 2Q 2024, DoSM said.

"This turnaround was driven by improvement in the confidence indicators of the health (40 per cent), followed by insurance (20.6 per cent) and accommodation (16.7 per cent) sub-sectors," it said.

DoSM said the confidence indicator for the construction sector also turned positive by posting 2.2 per cent in 3Q 2024 compared to -14.8 per cent in the preceding quarter.

Similarly, sentiment within the wholesale and retail trade sector moved to a positive direction by registering 1.4 per cent as against -4.1 per cent in the previous quarter, it said.

On the prospect for the second half (2H) of 2024, DoSM said businesses foresee an encouraging business outlook with a net balance of 23.5 per cent compared with the 14.9 per cent registered for the April-September 2024 period.

Among the sectors, the services sector showed the highest net balance at 30.8 per cent, up from 9.5 per cent previously.

"The industry sector foresees a favourable business condition, with a net balance of 23.2 per cent against 25.6 per cent previously, while the outlook for the construction sector remains upbeat in the upcoming six months, with a net balance of 21.7 per cent compared to 3.7 per cent previously.

"The wholesale and retail trade sector has turned optimistic on the business situation for the next six months ending December 2024, with a net balance of 13.4 per cent from -1.5 per cent previously," it said.