Global growth has been on a downtrend since the beginning of the year, with organisations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank cutting GDP growth forecast multiple times. Negative externalities such as the US-China trade war, a potential hard-Brexit, volatility in commodity prices and other negative geopolitical developments in both advanced and developing economies have weighed down on global GDP growth with some indicators pointing towards a possible recession ahead.
Since Malaysia is a small trade-dependent open economy, it is difficult for us to avoid any negative spillover impact from external headwinds as we are currently on a cyclical global economic downturn trend. The presentation will mostly brief on current global and domestic economic outlook as we interpret on recent economic data, while looking on the impact of the US-China trade on the Malaysia economy.