Malaysia’s current account surplus rose to MYR 16.39 billion in the three months to March 2019 from MYR 13.61 billion in the same period the preceding year. This was the largest current account surplus since the first quarter 2014, when the figure was at MYR 19.82 billion. In the March quarter, the surplus of good account declined slightly to 33.85 billion from MYR 34.16 billion a year ago. At the same time, the gap of services account narrowed sharply to MYR 1.84 billion from MYR 5.51 billion, while the deficit of primary income was little-changed MYR 10.12 billion from MYR 10.21 billion. Meantime, the gap of secondary income widened to MYR 5.51 billion from MYR 4.64 billion a year earlier. In 2018, the current account surplus was at MYR 35.77 billion, down from a surplus of MYR 40.28 billion in the prior year. Current Account in Malaysia averaged 15205.80 MYR Million from 1999 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 39982 MYR Million in the third quarter of 2008 and a record low of 978 MYR Million in the second quarter of 2013.
Current Account in Malaysia is expected to be 5100.00 MYR Million by the end of this quarter, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expectations. Looking forward, we estimate Current Account in Malaysia to stand at 12500.00 in 12 months time. In the long-term, the Malaysia Current Account is projected to trend around 9100.00 MYR Million in 2020, according to our econometric models.