Malaysia: BNM could pause its hiking cycle in November – UOB

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) could make an impasse in its tightening cycle at the November 3 event, suggests Lee Sue Ann, an Economist at UOB Group.

Key Quotes

“Given that inflation expectations are anchored to official targets and risks to the domestic growth outlook are tilting to the downside, we believe BNM will tread more cautiously”.

“We expect BNM to take an intermittent pause to assess the effect of its cumulative 75bps rate hikes to date, domestic policy outcomes, as well as higher external risks and weaker global outlook. As such, we expect the OPR to be left unchanged at 2.50% at the coming Nov meeting”.