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Malaysia firms see higher

first-half revenues

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian companies expect gross revenue to increase by 6.3 percent to 85.37 billion ringgit in the first half of 1996 compared with the second half of 1995, the national Bernama news agency said.

It quoted results from the Business Expectations Survey, which is conducted by the Statistics Department and covers some 220 of the biggest private and public limited companies in the country.

Capital expenditure for the period under review was expected to total 6.30 billion ringgit, down 7.7 percent from the previous half-year, while employment was expected to grow by 2.4 percent to reach 344,594 workers, the survey said.

The survey, conducted twice a year, aims to monitor current trends in the corporate sector of the economy and give an insight into its short-term expectations.

The sectors expecting significant percentage growth in revenue are manufacturing (up 2.84 billion ringgit, or 6.9 percent), banks and other financial institutions (up 1.13 billion ringgit, or 14 percent), transport (353.4 million ringgit, or 7.4 percent) and retail (346.1 million, or 14.2 percent).

Notable growth was also expected in the construction sector (up 17.9 percent) and in the wholesale sector (up 1.7 percent), the survey said.

However, over the same period, the rubber and oil palm sectors forecast declines of 24.6 percent and 7.5 percent of their revenue, respectively.

Of the total forecasted decline of 528.7 million ringgit in capital expenditure, the biggest was forecast for transport equipment (-51.2 percent). However, significant increases in capital outlay were expected to take the form of new machinery and equipment (+20.4 percent).

For employment, companies in the manufacturing sector anticipated an additional intake of 4,103 workers, or 2.7 percent, with the highest recruitment expected in electrical machinery, apparatus and appliances (1,707 workers or 2.4 percent), transport equipment (580 or 5.2 percent), textiles (500 or 5.3 percent), oil palm (1,404 or 2.4 percent) and transport (984 or 3.3 percent).

Among the constraints cited by some companies were labour shortages, high labour turnover and weather conditions.-Reuter