Key View: Relaxation of lockdowns and movement restrictions, travel recommencing, non-essential retail and hospitality reopening, and the launch of government stimulus packages are all being taken into account in our forecasts for Malaysia's consumer spending outlook in the short-to-medium term (2020-2024). The global spread of Covid-19 will have

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• We have revised our solar forecasts for Malaysia, and note that the continuation and success of solar tenders present further upside risk in the market.
• We believe that Malaysia's solar sector is particularly well poised for more growth, given the favourable conditions that the government will seek to leverage upon.
• The Malaysian

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• The direct allocation of 700MHz spectrum contradicts earlier plans to award spectrum to a single entity.
• The award of spectrum to Altel seems politically-motivated, and could hinder operators from developing robust 5G services due to a possible shortage of bandwidth.
• We remain bullish on the potential of 5G in Malaysia, although

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• We at Fitch Solutions have made a further downward revision to our forecast for real growth of Malaysia’s construction sector in 2020, mainly underpinned by the effects on construction activity as a result of multiple extensions to the movement control order imposed by the government. The sector is expected to contract, in real terms

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• The outlook for Malaysia’s natural gas production over the next five years is constructive, down to a particularly robust projects pipeline for 2020-2024.
• That said, we caution that gas projects in Sarawak may be impacted by the ongoing scuffle between Petronas and its state-owned counterpart Petros for control of oil and gas rights

Key View:

• After a year of tepid construction activity in 2019, we forecast the Malaysian construction sector to recover and expand by 3.5%, in real terms.
• Civil engineering works are expected to spearhead growth, with the road and rail sectors outperforming. Residential buildings sector growth will remain subdued, as the overhang situation

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• Increased longevity in Malaysia will translate into higher demand for healthcare services, medicines and elderly care.
• Driven by an ageing population, Malaysia’s rising chronic disease burden will be a key factor supporting pharmaceutical market growth over a multi-year horizon.
• A rising demand for pharmaceuticals will necessitate

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• Our 2020 view remains for a 25bps to the Overnight Policy Rate to 2.75%, following the central bank’s decision to hold at 3.00% at its final 2019 Monetary Policy Committee meeting on November 5.
• Slowing growth as a result of external headwinds, benign inflation on a soft oil price outlook, as well as a widening policy rate advantage

Key View

• Supportive government policy and a clear spectrum roadmap will mean that Malaysia will be one of the first few South East Asian markets to launch 5G, likely behind only Singapore.
• The telecoms regulator is unlikely to support a government-led rollout of a wholesale mobile network, although it will be keen for operators to pursue

Key View

• Malaysia’s current account balance is likely to remain under strong external pressure from slowing global growth, which has been exacerbated by elevated tariffs between the US and China.
• However, we expect the goods balance to be supported by declining imports over the coming months, with the exchange rate acting as a natural