Business

Thursday March 26, 2009

Precautionary moves put households on stronger ground


THE household sector enters the challenging economic phase with a healthier balance sheet and financial position.

The level of household indebtedness has somewhat moderated as households embarked on consolidating their financial position and obligations.

The household debt-to-gross domestic product ratio has continued to stabilise at around 66%.

Households’ precautionary behaviour resulted in the more moderate growth in demand for new financing of 18.8% in 2008 from 39.4% in the preceding year.

This was also influenced by the bearish performance of the local stock market.

For the year, disposable income grew within reasonable range, supported largely by high commodity prices and favourable economic conditions.

This provided enhanced support to the households’ debt servicing capacity.

The ratio of loan repayments-to-disposable income has also continued to improve in recent years. The sustained debt servicing capacity was also reflected in the financial assets-to-debts ratio, which continued to remain high at 2.4 times at end-2008.

The increase in disposable income in recent years has enabled households to accumulate savings as reflected in the average annual increase of 9% in households’ deposits with banking and development financial institutions over the last five years.

This was also supported by the temporary blanket guarantee protection on bank deposits by the government as well as some degree of portfolio rebalancing given the poor performance on equity investments.


For Bank Negara statements click here

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