The ringgit was unchanged at 4.0445 against the dollar. The market was only open for a half-day Thursday ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday. Malaysian stocks fluctuated after the data, with the benchmark index gaining 0.2% at the close at 12:30 p.m. Still, she added, the central bank has room to provide further support to the economy if needed.

With difficulties continuing into the early part of this year, “the market would inadvertently see today’s GDP data as one big signal that Bank Negara Malaysia may have to ease in March rather than wait for any more ‘confirmatory’ data.” Ĭentral bank governor Nor Shamsiah Mohd Yunus said Thursday that monetary policy remains appropriate and accommodative after the bank cut its policy rate by 125 basis points last year to fight the recession. The data are “an undoubtedly downbeat print to end the year of 2020 on a challenging note,” said Wellian Wiranto, an economist at Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp in Singapore. The economy contracted 5.6% for all of 2020, its worst performance since 1998 and below the government’s projection of -3.5% to -5.5%. Gross domestic product shrank 3.4% in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, its third straight contraction and a deeper decline than the -3.1% figure analysts surveyed by Bloomberg were expecting. Malaysia’s economic contraction quickened again in the fourth quarter, as a fresh virus wave late in 2020 helped drive the economy to its worst annual showing since the Asian financial crisis.

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