Bank Negara Malaysia (Source: nst.com.my)KualaLumpur (VNA) - The Malaysian central bank, Bank Negara, said onAugust 21 that its foreign reserves stood at 104.2 billion USD as of August 15.
The figure was 300 million USD lower that the 104.5 billion USD recorded by July31.
In its statement, the central bank said that the reserves are sufficient tofinance 7.6 months of retained imports.
Earlier, Fitch Ratings has affirmed Malaysia's long-termforeign-currency issuer default rating (IDR) at "A-" with a stableoutlook.
The rating agency said that theoutlook is supported by solid economic growth and a net external creditorposition built up from a record of current-account surpluses.
Fitch has also raised its estimate ofMalaysian central government debt at end-2017 to around 65 percent of grossdomestic product (GDP), from 50.8 percent predicted in late 2017, following thegovernment's recognition that it will need to service a large share ofexplicitly guaranteed debt.
It expects Malaysia's GDP growth toslow to 5.2 percent in 2018, 4.8 percent in 2019 and 4.6 percent in 2020, from5.9 percent in 2017, as the government seeks to constrain recurrent spending inline with its narrower revenue base.
Recently, Bank Negara also reviseddown the country’s growth forecast this year to 5 percent, after its grossdomestic product (GDP) in the second quarter came in sharply below itsexpectation.
At a press briefing toannounce the latest GDP data, the central bank's governor, Nor Shamsiah MohdYunus, said the first half GDP growth of 4.9 percent was lower thanexpectation, so the bank has revised down its full year growth to reflectrecent global tensions.-VNA
