Kuala lumpur: Malaysia's micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) reported a 5.7 percent growth in gross domestic product (GDP) in 2025, surpassing the national GDP growth rate of 5.2 percent, according to the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM).
According to BERNAMA News Agency, DOSM's Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises 2025 publication revealed that the value added by MSMEs rose to RM689.8 billion in 2025 from RM652.8 billion in 2024, representing 39.7 percent of Malaysia's GDP. This growth is attributed to government initiatives under Budget 2025, which included financing facilities, incentives, and entrepreneur development programs aimed at enhancing productivity, accelerating digitalization, adopting new technologies, fostering innovation, and expanding market access for MSMEs.
The services and manufacturing sectors were the largest contributors to MSMEs' GDP, accounting for a combined 84.5 percent, followed by agriculture (8.4 percent), construction (5.3 percent), and mining and quarrying (0.5 percent). The services sector maintained a steady growth rate of 5.7 percent in 2025, driven by sectors such as wholesale and retail trade, food and beverage, accommodation activities (5.0 percent), finance, insurance, real estate, business services (6.6 percent), as well as transportation, storage, and information and communication (7.7 percent).
The manufacturing sector experienced a 4.8 percent expansion in 2025, slightly down from 5.0 percent in 2024. This growth was supported by increases in food, beverages, and tobacco (9.6 percent), other manufacturing (4.7 percent), and non-metallic mineral products, basic metals, and fabricated metal products (4.7 percent). The agriculture sector saw a growth of 1.8 percent, a decrease from the previous year's 3.1 percent, mainly supported by the rubber, oil palm, livestock, and other agriculture sub-sectors, which collectively expanded by 2.3 percent.
The construction sector's growth rate slowed to 12.0 percent in 2025 from 17.5 percent in the previous year, while mining and quarrying grew by 4.4 percent, compared to 4.8 percent in 2024. MSMEs' exports increased by 10.5 percent to RM214.5 billion in 2025, following a substantial growth of 29.5 percent in 2024. This rise was driven by manufacturing and services exports, which grew by 8.8 percent and 14.0 percent, respectively. MSMEs accounted for 14.7 percent of Malaysia's total exports in 2025, with manufacturing being the largest contributor, followed by services and agriculture. Manufacturing exports by MSMEs rose to RM132.7 billion in 2025 from RM122.0 billion in 2024.