EMBARGO: Only to be published or disseminated at 12:00 hour, Friday, 20 June 2025

MONTHLY EXTERNAL TRADE STATISTICS, MAY 2025

Malaysia's trade performance sustained a positive trend in May 2025, consistent with the rise in imports (+6.6%), year-on-year (y-o-y). Total trade increased by RM6.4 billion or 2.6 per cent, y-o-y, reached RM252.5 billion.

Nevertheless, exports and trade balance experienced a decline of RM1.4 billion (-1.1%) and RM9.2 billion (-92.3%), respectively as compared to the same period in the previous year.

The monthly comparison shows that exports, imports, total trade and trade surplus declined by 5.2 per cent, 2.0 per cent, 3.6 per cent and 85.1 per cent, respectively.

Total trade, exports and imports all showed positive trend from January to May 2025, compared to the corresponding period in the previous year. Total trade climbed by 6.2 per cent, driven by increases in exports (+5.5%) and imports (+6.9%). While, trade surplus recorded a declined by 9.4 per cent to reach RM46.9 billion. 

Performance of Exports

Malaysia’s exports decreased by 1.1 per cent in May 2025, down from RM128.0 billion in April 2024 to RM126.6 billion. 

This negative growth is aligned with the 4.7 per cent decrease in domestic exports to RM100.8 billion from RM105.8 billion, accounting for 79.6 per cent of overall exports. However, re-exports accounted for 20.4 per cent of total exports, up 16.1 per cent to RM25.8 billion.

Moreover, a monthly comparison showed that exports decreased by 5.2 per cent or RM6.9 billion. With regards to analysis of the seasonally adjusted terms month-on-month (m-o-m), exports decreased by 4.8 per cent to RM130.4 billion. 

Performance of Imports

Malaysia's import value increased by 6.6 per cent, or RM7.8 billion to RM125.9 billion in May 2025. On a m-o-m basis, imports downed by 2.0 per cent or RM2.5 billion.  According to the m-o-m seasonally adjusted terms analysis, imports decline 3.6 per cent to RM126.8 billion.

Imports by End Use increased, y-o-y, with an increase in capital goods (+63.7%), whereas intermediate goods and consumption goods decreased 4.4 per cent and 1.1 per cent, respectively.

Contact person:
Baharudin Mohamad
Public Relation Officer
Strategic Communication and International Division
Department of Statistics Malaysia
Tel : +603-8090 4681
Fax : +603-8888 9248
Email : baharudin[at]dosm.gov.my
Copyright ©2026 Department of Statistics Malaysia Official Portal. All Rights Reserved.
An Error occurred while handling another error:
yii\web\HeadersAlreadySentException: Headers already sent in /var/www/html/dosm/frontend/controllers/SiteController.php on line 191. in /var/www/html/dosm/vendor/yiisoft/yii2/web/Response.php:368
Stack trace:
#0 /var/www/html/dosm/vendor/yiisoft/yii2/web/Response.php(341): yii\web\Response->sendHeaders()
#1 /var/www/html/dosm/vendor/yiisoft/yii2/web/ErrorHandler.php(136): yii\web\Response->send()
#2 /var/www/html/dosm/vendor/yiisoft/yii2/base/ErrorHandler.php(152): yii\web\ErrorHandler->renderException()
#3 [internal function]: yii\base\ErrorHandler->handleException()
#4 {main}
Previous exception:
yii\web\HeadersAlreadySentException: Headers already sent in /var/www/html/dosm/frontend/controllers/SiteController.php on line 191. in /var/www/html/dosm/vendor/yiisoft/yii2/web/Response.php:368
Stack trace:
#0 /var/www/html/dosm/vendor/yiisoft/yii2/web/Response.php(341): yii\web\Response->sendHeaders()
#1 /var/www/html/dosm/vendor/yiisoft/yii2/base/Application.php(390): yii\web\Response->send()
#2 /var/www/html/dosm/www/index.php(24): yii\base\Application->run()
#3 {main}