After the Malaysian government announced the requirement of going into a “total lockdown” due to the spreading corona virus cases, the stocks in the country recorded a fall of 1.1% early Monday morning.
The country reported a continuous record increase in the coronavirus cases for five days last week. This led to the country’s benchmark stock index ‘FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Index’ falling around 1.5% before eventually settling at 1.1%.
While Malaysia has been trying to cope with their increasing COVID-19 cases, the country’s Prime Minister, Muhyiddin Yasin announced the decision of a two-weel lockdown which would be initiated on Tuesday.
Brian Tan, who is an economist for Singapore’s Barclays Bank, wrote in a note on Monday that the lockdown initiated will cost the country’s economy every two weeks between 0.5% to 1%. Due to this estimate he decided to lower this year’s growth forecast of Malaysia from 6.5% to 5.5%, bringing it below the Central Bank.
