PETALING JAYA: Malaysia’s Services Producer Price Index (SPPI) increased marginally by 0.7% in the second quarter of 2024 compared to 1% in the first quarter of 2024.
Chief Statistician Malaysia Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said, “The arts, entertainment & recreation index rose 7.7% as against 7.5% in the first quarter of 2024 contributed by the other amusement & recreation activities (2.3%). The index of accommodation and food & beverage service activities continued to increase by 2.4% (Q1 2024: 2.5%) attributed to beverage service activities (3.6%) and restaurants & mobile food service activities (2.6%), following an incline in food prices.”
Meanwhile, he added the education subsector inched up 0.8%, similar to the previous quarter, contributed by secondary education (2.2%).
“Real estate activities was also on a similar trend, increasing by 0.8% as compared to 0.6% in the first quarter of 2024. In meantime, health and professional indices went up by 0.3% and 0.2%, respectively,” he remarked.
Conversely, Mohd Uzir said the transport shrank by negative 1.4%, after recording no changes in the previous quarter, particularly due to the passenger air transport index (-5.9%). The downturn has been seen since the fourth quarter of 2023.
Apart from that, the information & communication index decreased by negative 0.1% from an increase of 0.1% in the previous quarter due to wireless telecommunication activities (-0.2%).
“On a quarter-on-quarter basis comparison, SPPI contracted by negative 0.1%, after an increase of 0.3% in the first quarter of 2024. This was the first decline since the fourth quarter of 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. The decline was mainly due to the transportation index, which recorded a negative 2.0% (Q1 2024: 0.7%) attributed to passenger air transport (-6.8%),” he said, adding that the information & communication index was also down by negative 0.2%, from an increase of 0.1% in the previous quarter, owing to wireless telecommunication activities (-0.2%).
However, the arts, entertainment & recreation index increased at a faster rate of 4.0% compared to 0.2% in the first quarter of 2024. In addition, the accommodation and food & beverage service activities index went up slightly by 0.6%, followed by education (0.3%) and real estate activities (0.2%) indices.
Meanwhile, both health and professional indices recorded slight increases of 0.1%, respectively.
