KUALA LUMPUR, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia's wholesale and retail trade hit an all-time high of 143.9 billion ringgit (30.21 billion U.S. dollars) in December, official data showed Thursday.
The Department of Statistics Malaysia said in a statement that the increase of 4.8 percent year-on-year for wholesale and retail trade in December 2023 was driven by the retail trade sub-sector, which rose 5 percent.
Wholesale trade expanded by 4.4 percent, while motor vehicles grew by 5.9 percent.
As for the fourth quarter last year, the wholesale and retail trade rose 5.8 percent year on year to 428.8 billion ringgit, underpinned by the wholesale trade sub-sector, which increased by 5.4 percent.
Meanwhile, retail trade expanded by 4.5 percent and the motor vehicle sub-sector went up 12.3 percent.
As for the full year of 2023, the wholesale and retail trade jumped 7.7 percent year on year to 1.7 trillion ringgit.
This was spurred by retail trade, which increased by 9 percent, while wholesale trade expanded by 5.2 percent and the motor vehicles sub-sector grew 12.3 percent. (1 ringgit equals 0.21 U.S. dollar) ■