KUALA LUMPUR, April 6 — In an index measuring risk-versus-reward for car sales in South-east Asia, Malaysia ranked second only to Singapore due to the quality of its road network and new vehicle market.

The Asean Autos Sales Risk/Reward Index released by Fitch Group unit BMI Research today gave Malaysia a score of 57.6 points out of 100 compared 74.6 for Singapore.

"The country’s biggest strengths lie in its highly developed new vehicle market and good quality road network, scoring 82.9 and 90.2 out of 100 respectively,” the report said referring to Malaysia.

"Further contributing to Malaysia’s second place in the Asean region is its stable long-term economic environment and low-risk operational risk profile, obtaining scores of 87.8 and 79.7 respectively.”

Despite that, the report said Malaysia’s weakness lies in poor performance for vehicle sales growth, scoring just 22.8 on BMI’s sales index based on its five-year forecast.

Singapore lead the regional ranking, and was also placed in the top 20 countries globally at 14th place out of 124 countries.

Myanmar had ranked last in the region, and together with Cambodia, Laos and Thailand was place in the "low rewards, high risk” group.

In February, BMI reported that Malaysia offers one of the best returns at low risks for investments among the emerging economies in the Asia-Pacific region’s fast-growing infrastructure sector.