KUALA LUMPUR: Strong public infrastructure spending in Malaysia and Hong Kong will ensure more broad-based economic growth than other trade-dependent economies, says Moody’s Investors Service. “In the event that solid external demand persists and ongoing government infrastructure spending supports a further wave of investment by private businesses, that could mean that growth there slows less in 2018 than we currently expect,” Moody’s said in its latest report today. Global demand has picked up since late last year and that has buoyed Asia Pacific's trade-reliant economies, but that faster export growth has yet to feed into a more sustainable acceleration in output growth. Support to sovereign credit profiles will be strongest where the export upturn combines with structural reforms and investment in infrastructure, it said. It noted that trends in gross fixed capital formation have differed markedly among the region's trade-dependent economies.

Source: New Strait Times September 18, 2017 04:30 UTC