KUALA LUMPUR, March 18 — S&P Global Ratings expects Malaysia’s economy to see a stronger recovery, recording a 7.5 per cent growth this year after contracting 5.6 per cent in 2020, dragged down by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Analyst Andrew Wood said this could be achieved, but cautioned that there may be some downside risk depending on the daily Covid-19 cases reported and how the government is working to contain the spread of the pandemic.
“We may revise Malaysia’s outlook to ‘stable’ from the ‘negative’ outlook over the next 24 months if the economy grows considerably faster (than we had forecast) and produces a stronger fiscal performance which will lead to a quicker improvement in government finances,” he said.
Wood was speaking at a webinar titled “S&P Global Ratings’ Talks on Sovereign Rating Trends in the Asia-Pacific amid Vaccines rollout” on Thursday.
He noted that the rating agency forecast that Malaysia would record a 5.2 per cent GDP growth in 2022 and 4.6 per cent in 2023. — Bernama
