OPEC production cut will not lift oil prices significantly : World Bank economist

KUALA LUMPUR: The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries' (OPEC) decision to cut oil production is not expected to lift oil prices significantly, according to World Bank chief economist for East Asia and Pacific region Sudhir Shetty.
"It won't have much impact on the trajectory of oil prices, but we see it will rise gradually moving into 2017 and 2018," he told a teleconference on East Asia and Pacific economic update here today.
Sudhir said while Malaysia could benefit from the production cut by OPEC, there is still a lot of supply from non-OPEC countries.
On Malaysia's economic prospects, he believes gross domestic product (GDP) growth will improve in 2017 and 2018 to 4.3% and 4.5% respectively after an expected moderate growth of 4.2% in 2016 due to low commodity prices and slowing manufacturing exports.
"For 2017 and 2018, we see faster trade growth in manufacturing and recovery in commodity prices, this will underpin the growth in Malaysia," he noted.