KUALA LUMPUR: Business confidence rose to its highest level since the 2013 post-election highs in the second quarter of this year, according to a survey conducted by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and the Institute of Management Accountants.
Some 18 per cent of the Malaysian respondents in the Global Economic Conditions Survey (GECS) reported confidence gains in the April- June period, an increase of six per cent, while 28 per cent reported a loss of confidence, down from 49 per cent in the previous quarter.
Malaysia is one of the few major markets to have genuinely recovered in the second quarter of this year, according to the survey of finance professionals.
“The macro economic outlook (of Malaysia) has returned to the euphoria of post-election levels: 37 per cent of respondents believe conditions are improving or about to do so, up from 27 per cent previously, while the pessimists made up 55 per cent of the Malaysian sample, down from 63 per cent,” said Manos Schizas,
senior economic analyst at ACCA and editor of the survey.
The latest findings of the GECS show that access to growth capital improved substantially in the quarter, reaching its best levels in at least two-and-a-half years, and there were signs of a slow return to financial stability, with inflation and exchange rate volatility falling.
Cashflow and demand conditions improved in line with the broad trend of the last 15 months. The result was a strong rebound in business capacity building and a smaller uptick in opportunities for inorganic growth, but with growth in the rest of the region facing strong headwinds, opportunities for organic growth fell.
Although this development would normally depress business confidence, it has been balanced out by expectations of stronger medium-term growth in government expenditures, said the GECS report, which was released yesterday.
