Malaysia: BNM seen on hold at its meeting this week – UOB

Economist at UOB Group Lee Sue Ann suggests the Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) could keep its policy rate unchanged at the Thursday’s meeting.

Key Takeaways

“We think the build-up of domestic inflation pressures together with sustaining growth momentum and more aggressive Fed monetary policy tightening would justify an interest rate hike by BNM as early as in 2Q22.”

“We expect the OPR to be raised twice this year (+25bps in 2Q22 and +25bps in 3Q22), bringing it to 2.25% by end-2022.”