KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 27): Businesses are more optimistic about the business environment for the third quarter of 2024 (3Q2024), as indicated by the increase in the Department of Statistics Malaysia’s (DOSM) confidence indicator to 4.7% from 0.7% in 2Q2024.

All sectors forecast a brighter business outlook for 3Q2024, according to chief statistician Datuk Sri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin.

“Business sentiment in the industry sector remains favourable with 4.1% in the reference quarter against 5.3% in the last quarter.

“This sturdy sentiment was contributed by positive confidence in all industry sub-sectors, namely electricity and water (23.3%), mining (6.7%), manufacturing (2.0%), and agriculture (0.6%),” Mohd Uzir said in a statement on the business tendency statistics for 3Q2024.

Meanwhile, the services sector’s confidence indicator rebounded into positive territory at 8.3% in the current quarter, from -0.9% in 2Q2024, according to the DOSM.

“This turnaround was driven by improvement in the confidence indicators of the health (40%), followed by insurance (20.6%) and accommodation (16.7%) sub-sectors,” it said.

The DOSM said the confidence indicator of the construction sector also turned positive by posting 2.2% in 3Q2024, compared with -14.8% in the preceding quarter.

Similarly, sentiment within the wholesale and retail trade sector moved to a positive direction by registering 1.4% against -4.1% in the previous quarter, it said.

On prospects for the second half of 2024, the DOSM said businesses foresee an encouraging business outlook with a net balance of 23.5%, compared with the 14.9% registered for the April-September 2024 period.

Among the sectors, the services sector showed the highest net balance at 30.8%, up from 9.5% previously.

“The industry sector foresees a favourable business condition, with a net balance of 23.2% against 25.6% previously, while the outlook for the construction sector remains upbeat about the upcoming six months, with a net balance of 21.7%, compared with 3.7% previously.

“The wholesale and retail trade sector has turned optimistic about the business situation for the next six months ending December 2024, with a net balance of 13.4% from -1.5% previously,” it said.

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