igher revenue expected for Malaysian banks

KUALA LUMPUR, May 18 Kyodo

Malaysian banks are expected to post higher revenues in the

first six months of 1998, a survey by the Statistics Department

showed Monday.

The department's business expectations survey of limited

companies for the first half of 1998 said banks and financial

institutions are projected to post a 5.7% increase in gross revenue

to 15.64 billion ringgit (4.28 billion dollars) compared with 14.81

billion ringgit in the second half of 1997.

Overall, gross revenues for 270 companies representing 13

sectors covered in the survey will decline by 3.7%, 4.99 billion

ringgit, to 129.96 billion ringgit. In the second half of last year,

the 270 companies posted 134.95 billion ringgit in revenues, the

national news agency Bernama said.

Other sectors expected to do well include the telecommunications 

sector with a projected 5.5% increase in gross revenue to 5.55

billion ringgit, transport go up 5.4% to 6.05 billion ringgit, and

palm oil up 4.2% to 1.74 billion ringgit.

Hotel, real estate and business services are also project to

post a slight increase in revenues.

The "less hopeful" sector, the department said, is retail,

which is expected to see a 35.8% plunge in revenues to 2.18

billion ringgit. Construction is expected to fall by 27.4% to

2.66 billion ringgit.

Others sectors in the negative zone are wholesale, logging,

rubber, manufacturing and petroleum, mining and electricity.

The survey said planned capital investments are projected at

13.36 billion ringgit for the first half of this year, down 25.4 %

from the second half of last year.

The workforce is also expected to be reduced 0.4% after

taking into consideration retirements, resignations and layoffs.