By Xiong Ping

Malaysia's trade managed to forge ahead on its growth path with an overall view on last year, although its exports suffered a major setback in the fourth quarter due to the global financial crisis.

Malaysia's Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) Thursday unveiled a preliminary report here on the country's trade performance in 2008, saying that the total trade value in the year was 1.185 trillion ringgit (3291.7 billion U.S. dollars), up 6.8 percent against the previous year.

Among this, the total value of exports was 663.51 billion ringgit (184.30 billion U.S. dollars an increase of 9.6 percent against the year 2007.

"This performance was precipitated by a buoyant double digit export growth of 16 percent in the first nine months and the unprecedented decline of 18.3 percent in exports in the last quarter," the ministry said.

The impact of the global financial slowdown made its impact on the performance of the fourth quarter, it said.

The exports in December last year, valued at 46.09 billion ringgit (12.8 billion U.S. dollars), was the weakest record for the year, which was affected by the global financial crisis as well as the festive holidays.

In 2008, electrical and electronic products remained Malaysia's largest contributor to total exports, accounting for a 38.3 percent share of the total, according to the report released by the ministry.

However, Malaysia's exports of these products in 2008 decreased by 3.4 percent compared with the year 2007, which was mainly attributed to less exports of office machines and other machines and parts to the United States and Europe.

The country's imports in 2008 posted 521.5 billion ringgit (114.86 billion U.S. dollars), also up 3.3 percent from the previous year.

The increase was contributed mainly by higher imports of consumption goods which grew by 11.6 percent.

The top four import sources of Malaysia were China, Japan, Singapore and the United States in 2008. Malaysia imported goods worth of 66.85 billion ringgit (18.57 billion U.S. dollars from China in the year.

Major imports were electrical and electronic products, chemicals and chemical products, machinery, appliances and parts, iron and steel products, etc.

However, despite some slowdown of its exports in the fourth quarter of last year, the year of 2008 was the third consecutive year that the country's total trade surpassed 1 trillion ringgit mark.

Facing the global financial crisis, the MITI said that the Malaysian government has announced various measures since November2008 to address the impact, including introductions of strategies to stimulate and facilitate investment, trade and further liberalization of manufacturing related services.

The ministry also said that it has fine-tuned its 2009 export promotion activities, mainly focusing on emerging and new markets.

The ministry also said that it was ready to help ease the financial burden of Malaysian exporters, especially small- and medium-sized enterprises.

During these challenging times, Malaysia will continue to support efforts to ensure a liberal trading environment.