KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 9): Malaysia's wholesale and retail trade contracted by 5.9% for the whole of 2020 — a historical low, according to the Department of Statistics Malaysia's (DOSM) report on the Performance of Wholesale and Retail Trade for December 2020.

During the month under review, wholesale and retail trade declined by 0.3% year-on-year (y-o-y) to RM115.5 billion, said Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin.

In a statement today, he said retail trade declined 2% y-o-y or RM0.9 billion to RM46.8 billion in December 2020, while wholesale trade also recorded a decrease of RM0.3 billion or 0.6% y-o-y to RM55.3 billion.

On the other hand, he said motor vehicles continued to record positive growth with an increase of RM0.9 billion or 7.4% y-o-y to RM13.4 billion.

Mohd Uzir said the negative growth in December 2020's retail trade was due to a decline in retail sales of non-essential products, namely retail sales in specialised stores (-6.4%), household goods (-4.1%), cultural and recreation goods (-4.9%), and information and communication equipment (-0.9%).

However, he said sales of essential goods depicted a positive growth, namely retail sales in non-specialised stores, which grew by 2.1% y-o-y to RM16.9 billion, followed by retail sales of food, beverages and tobacco, which recorded a 6.4% y-o-y growth to RM2.9 billion.

Retail trade not in stores, stalls or markets also expanded 9.8% to RM0.4 billion y-o-y, followed by retail sales via stalls and markets, which increased by 7.3% y-o-y to RM0.1 billion.

On wholesale trade, Mohd Uzir attributed the 0.6% y-o-y fall in December 2020 to the decline in other specialised wholesale and wholesale on a fee or contract basis, which fell by 6.4%.

By contrast, wholesale of food, beverages and tobacco grew 5.1% y-o-y to RM10.7 billion, while the wholesale of household goods increased 3.9% y-o-y to RM11.2 billion.

Similarly, wholesale of machinery, equipment and supplies also expanded 3.2% y-o-y in December 2020 with sales totalling RM4.8 billion, he added.

Meanwhile, sales of motor vehicles spearheaded the growth in the motor vehicles sub-sector, recording a double-digit increment of 15.3% y-o-y to RM7.5 billion.

This was followed by the sale, maintenance and repair of motorcycles, which registered a sales value of RM1.1 billion — a 6.9% growth y-o-y.

However, maintenance and repair of motor vehicles contracted 3.2% y-o-y to record RM1.6 billion.

Sales of motor vehicle parts and accessories also decreased by 2.6% y-o-y to RM3.2 billion.

Mohd Uzir said on a month-on-month (m-o-m) basis, sales value rose 4.6% in December 2020 compared with November 2020 after the Conditional Movement Control Order was lifted, except in certain states and districts due to increases in daily Covid-19 cases.

He said the m-o-m growth was contributed by the 4.8% or RM2.5 billion increase in wholesale trade, as well as retail trade which expanded by RM2 billion or 4.5%, followed by motor vehicles which went up RM0.6 billion or 4.4%.

Meanwhile, the online retail sales index surged by 37.3% y-o-y.

"For seasonally adjusted retail sales index, it went up 3.9% as against the previous month," he said.

In terms of volume index, wholesale and retail trade registered a negative growth of -0.7% y-o-y, which Mohd Uzir said was due to the fall in retail trade, which decreased 2.9%, while wholesale trade also depicted a slight fall of -0.02%.

Meanwhile, motor vehicles recorded a positive growth of 6%.