Malaysia's growth expected to moderate

Malaysia's growth expected to moderate

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Malaysia's robust economic growth is
expected to moderate over the next year before picking up in
1998, the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research said
yesterday.

The country's gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to ease
to 8.3 percent this year from a dizzying 9.5 percent growth last
year due to a slowdown in exports and slower growth in private
investment, it said.

"Real GDP growth is forecast to be sustained at 8.2 percent in
1997, picking up to 8.5 percent in 1998 when Malaysia plays host
to the Commonwealth Games," the institute's executive director,
Sulaiman Mahboob, told at a seminar on the national economic
outlook.

Malaysia's GDP has been growing at an average of more than
eight percent annually since 1987.

MIER forecast the country's current account deficit would
narrow to 13.067 billion ringgit (US$5.227 billion) this year
from 17.8 billion ringgit last year.

The current account deficit -- measuring the deficit in trade,
services, debt payments and other overseas transactions, would
fall to 12.411 billion ringgit in 1997 and 12.471 billion ringgit
the following year, it said.