KUALA LUMPUR (July 12): Malaysia’s wholesale and retail trade registered a 28.3% year-on-year (y-o-y) growth in sales value to RM108.3 billion in May 2021 against a contraction of 23.8% in May 2020, the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) said.
In a statement today, chief statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the growth was highly contributed by the wholesale trade sub-sector, which increased 31.2% y-o-y to RM53.4 billion.
He said subsequently, retail trade expanded 17.3% y-o-y to RM43.3 billion while motor vehicles also showed a significant increase of 71.1% y-o-y to RM11.6 billion.
“Although retail trade sales registered a positive y-o-y growth, when comparing with April this year, this sub-sector experienced a contraction of 2.2% due to the re-implementation of Movement Control Order from May 12 until June 7, 2021,” he said.
However, he said on a month-on-month (m-o-m) comparison, the wholesale and retail trade sales value decreased 2.5% in May 2021.
Meanwhile, he said the index of retail sales of any kind of product over the internet, which portrayed e-commerce activity, grew 15.8% y-o-y in May 2021 compared with 22% y-o-y growth in April 2021.
“Seasonally adjusted, the index slipped 0.6% against the previous month,” he said.
In terms of volume index, he said wholesale and retail trade registered a y-o-y growth of 27.2% in May 2021.
Mohd Uzir said the expansion was supported by motor vehicles, which increased 66% y-o-y, followed by wholesale trade and retail trade which rose 27.9% and 20.1% y-o-y respectively.
“As for seasonally adjusted volume index, it went down 6.6% m-o-m,” he added.
