KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 15 — Foreign funds remained as net sellers on local equities market weighed by cautious sentiment driven by the external market, particularly on efforts to broker “phase one” trade deal between the United States and China.

Inter-Pacific Securities Sdn Bhd head of research Pong Teng Siew said foreign net outflow stood at RM327.09 million from Dec 9-12, significantly lower compared with RM929.76 million on Dec 2-5.

The local market he said, which saw a sharp sell-off last week after US President Donald Trump said that a trade deal with China might not be completed until after the 2020 election, managed to recover this week

“The market was oversold and investors keep on selling. However, the outflow of this week has reduced from last week as there was not much disturbing news (that could significantly trigger further sell-off),” he told Bernama.

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As of Jan 1-Dec 12, Pong said foreign funds have contributed an outflow of RM11.08 billion against RM11.59 billion in the same period of 2018 and RM10.33 billion (2017).

Among the economic/corporate developments that made headlines this week was the World Bank’s downward revision of Malaysia’s 2020 gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast to 4.5 per cent from earlier projection of 4.6 per cent.

The revision, which was published in its Malaysia Economic Monitor 2019, was largely due to weaker than expected private investment and export growth in the third quarter this year.

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On Dec 11, the cabinet approved the consolidation of Malaysia’s aviation industry regulatory bodies.

The consolidation will see the dissolution of the Malaysian Aviation Commission (Mavcom) and its key functions are to be transferred to the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia (CAAM).

The Transport Ministry in a statement said the merger was to rationalise the country’s aviation industry and making it more competitive as well as to optimise its staff and financial resources. — Bernama