No disruption to financial intermediation, financing activities remain smooth - Tengku Zafrul

KUALA LUMPUR: The country's financial system and equity market have continued to function in a good and orderly manner without any disruption to financial intermediation, while lending activities have run smoothly until now, said Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz.

He said the Malaysian stock market recorded a total net foreign investment of RM6.6 billion as of now compared to the net capital outflow of almost RM313 billion for emerging Asia excluding China.

"Besides that, Bursa Malaysia's net fund inflows are still solid with a total of RM7.2 billion as of end-September," he said during the Minister's Question Time session in the Dewan Rakyat today.

The Finance Minister was answering a supplementary question from Datuk Seri Ahmad Maslan (UMNO-Pontian) on the latest developments in the country's capital markets, including stock and bond markets.

Tengku Zafrul said financing activities continue to function well with accumulated funds of RM72 billion as of the end of August for the private bond market and RM118.7 billion for the government bond market.

"However, we need to be mindful of global developments that have also affected the country's financial market, including the interest rate hike by the US central bank amounting to 300 basis points so far (this year to a range of 4.25 per cent to 4.5 per cent), which is expected to increase further to 4.75 per cent by end-2023," he said.

Consequently, he said, global equity markets are estimated to have incurred losses of US$9 trillion or RM41.9 trillion, and together with losses in the global bond market, losses amounted to around US$46 trillion or RM214 trillion.

He said while Bursa Malaysia, as tracked by the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI, had shrunk by 11 per cent as of the end of September, stock markets in other countries had also declined including South Korea, Hong Kong, the United States, Germany, France and China.

-- BERNAMA