COMMENT | The economic downtown caused by the Covid-19 lockdown in Malaysia may be deeper and longer than many analysts are predicting and new data is signalling a worse picture than what was forecast by the government and Bank Negara when planning the current economic stimulus and recovery packages.

Official figures show that the Malaysian economy was already slowing down with economic growth for the first quarter falling to just 0.7 percent year-on-year. Growth fell by two percent compared to the previous quarter indicating that the recession had already started by the end of March 2020...