KUALA LUMPUR, March 13 — The government does not control the movements in the stock market but the supply and demand factor, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said today.

The volatility in the stock markets is a normal situation and depends on the market conditions both domestic as well as global, he said when asked about reports saying Malaysia’s stock market is Asia’s only loser of 2019.

“Our fundamentals are sound if you look at our figures in terms of growth rate, declining consumer price index (CPI), record level exports and trade surplus,” he told reporters after launching Bank Pembangunan’s Sustainable Development Financing Fund here today.

Malaysia’s economy expanded by 4.7 per cent in 2018. On Monday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which projected the same pace of growth for 2019, also praised the country’s resilient economy.

Malaysia’s inflation, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI), decreased 0.7 per cent in January 2019 from a year earlier. The drop was the first since November 2009 when the CPI fell 0.1 per cent.

He said adding to the encouraging figures would be the country’s foreign direct investment (FDI) data to be released tomorrow. — Bernama