KL August manufacturing sales up

KL August manufacturing sales up

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian manufacturing sales in August rose 3.6 percent from a year earlier to 28.38 billion ringgit (US$7.47 billion) but fell 0.1 percent from July, the Statistics Department said on Thursday.

For the first eight months of the year, manufacturing sales increased 9.1 percent to 219.15 billion ringgit, according to preliminary figures released by the department.

August is the the second consecutive month that sales have has breached the 28 billion ringgit mark and economists are hopeful that this trend will continue until end of the year.

"If this trend of monthly sales of at least 28 billion ringgit persists during the remaining four months of this year, we can expect to see a full year growth exceeding 7.5 percent.

According to preliminary figures released last month, manufacturing sales in July rose 7.3 percent from a year earlier to 28.1 billion ringgit and were up 1.4 percent from June.--AFP