Malaysia’s Inflation Rate Drops To 2%, Lowest In 2 Years

The Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) has just released some new info regarding the inflation rate in Malaysia. According to the information, Malaysia’s inflation rate has cooled to 2.0 percent in July 2023.

This is the lowest for the year with the index points recorded at 130.5 as against 127.9 in the same month of the previous year. The monthly rate headline inflation in July 2023 increased by 0.1 per cent, the lower than recorded in June 2023. The cooling in Malaysia’s inflation was due to slower increase in restaurants & hotels (5.0%) and food & non-alcoholic beverages (4.4%).

Aside from that, slower increases to the inflation rate in July can also be attributed to miscellaneous goods & services which rose by 2.6 percent followed by health and education, both increased by 2.0 percent respectively.  Other sectors like housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels which total 23.8 per cent of the CPI saw 1.7 percent increase.

Source: DOSM

When looking at inflation rates at the state level, nine states recorded increases below the national inflation level of 2.0 percent with Wilayah Persekutuan Labuan recording the lowest increase of 1.1 percent in July 2023. However, six states recorded increases above the national inflation level namely Pahang (2.6%), Sarawak (2.6%), Wilayah Persekutuan Putrajaya (2.6%), Perak (2.4%), Selangor (2.4%) and Melaka (2.2%).

When compared to other countries Malaysia’s national inflation level of 2.0 percent is noticeably lower than inflation in the Eurozone (5.3%), Philippines (4.7%), Singapore (4.1%), United States of America (3.2%), Indonesia (3.1%), Republic of Korea (2.3%) and Vietnam (2.1%). However, Malaysia’s inflation was higher than Thailand (0.4%) and China (-0.3%).