PETALING JAYA: Manufacturing sector sales reached RM161.3 billion in October 2024, up 3% year-on-year, slightly surpassing the 2.9% increase in the previous month, said Chief Statistician Malaysia Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin.
“The growth was primarily fuelled by a robust 11.2% increase in the food, beverages & tobacco sub-sector, following a 5.6% rise in September 2024. The growth was further supported by the increase in electrical & electronics products sub-sector at 3.2%, as well as the non-metallic mineral products, basic metal & fabricated metal products sub-sector (4.4%),” he said.
Month-on-month, the sales value declined by 0.6% from RM162.3 billion in September.
The sales value of export-oriented industries, which made up 71.5% of the total manufacturing sales value, maintained a year-on-year growth of 3% as in September 2024. The steady growth was mainly driven by the strong performance in the manufacture of vegetable & animal oils & fats (13.7%); and manufacture of rubber products (11.4%) industries.
Month-on-month, export-oriented industries experienced a 2.1% decline in October.
Meanwhile, domestic-oriented industries improved further by 3% (September 2024: 2.5%), mainly influenced by the increase in manufacture of processed food industry at 8.1%, higher than 6.9% registered in the preceding month.
Furthermore, construction-related industries, manufacture of fabricated metal products, except machinery and equipment; and manufacture of other non-metallic mineral products continued to show favourable growth at 6.1% and 3.9%, respectively. Compared to the previous month, the sales value of domestic-oriented industries rebounded to 3.5%, from a 0.7% decline in September.
Mohd Uzir said, “There were 2.4 million employees involved in the manufacturing sector in October 2024, marking a 0.9% increase compared to a 0.8% growth in September 2024. The increase was observed largely in the food, beverages and tobacco (2.0%); non-metallic mineral products, basic metal and fabricated metal products (1.5%); and electrical and electronic products (0.3%) sub-sectors. In comparison with the preceding month, the number of employees in this sector augmented by 0.4%, slightly slower than 0.5% registered in September 2024.”
In October 2024, salaries and wages in the manufacturing sector rose by 1.7%, reaching RM8.28 billion. Compared to the previous month, salaries and wages increased by 0.6%. This led to an increase on average monthly salaries and wages per employee by 0.8% year-on-year to RM3,451. Simultaneously, the sales value per employee rose by 2% to record RM67,215.
For the first 10 months this year (January-October 2024), the sales value of the manufacturing sector amounted to RM1,566.1 billion, an increase of 4.5% compared to the same period of 2023 (January-October 2023: 0.9%).
