Weak consumer confidence poses challenge
KUALA LUMPUR: While there is a general consensus that the economy will see a substantial recovery in the second half of the year, there are also concerns that declining consumer confidence would further impact businesses in the short term amid rising Covid-19 cases.
Professor of Economics at Sunway University Business School Dr Yeah Kim Leng noted that all eyes are on the number of new cases, which has remained high despite almost a month of new movement restrictions.
The second movement control order (MCO 2.0), which was supposed to end on Feb 4, had been extended to another 14 days to Feb 18 throughout the country except Sarawak.
“The economic impact of the extended MCO will be severe since the expected financial loss is estimated at RM700mil a day.
“Although it is less than the RM2.4bil economic loss per day in the previous MCO, the impact this round can still be substantial, about 2.5 percentage points of the gross domestic product (GDP) if the MCO is extended to two months.
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