PUTRAJAYA, Feb 14 — The Malaysian economic outlook for the first quarter of 2019 will be very challenging amid a sluggish global economy, said Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng.

Lim said despite this, he is still confident that Malaysia will continue to see rising growth in its gross domestic product (GDP).

“It is going to be quite challenging as it depends on the state of the economy,” he said after handing over RM25 million for public and private Islamic schools to Education Minister Maszlee Malik at the Education Ministry here today.

This comes after he revealed that Malaysia’s GDP for the fourth financial quarter for 2018 had seen a growth of 4.7 per cent, a 0.1 percentage point lower than targeted due to the trade war between the China and the US.

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“I think our performance is satisfactory as other countries’ economic growth is also facing a decline. So if we see it globally, everyone is affected. We see Malaysia achieving 4.7 per cent growth is good and much more compared to the previous financial quarter,” he said.