Pillar of Malaysia's Consumer Spending May Be Weakening

With the nation’s key oil exports falling and budget cuts coming, Malaysia still had consumer spending as a prop for growth late last year.

That pillar may be weakening, escalating the risks for a middle-income economy that expanded an average 5.8 percent in the past half decade. Measures of manufacturing wages and credit-card spending are the weakest since at least the global financial crisis, according to inflation-adjusted data compiled by Bloomberg.