the performance of the ringgit against the us dollar. it is unfortunate that many see and use this as an indicator or barometer of how we are doing. this is an unfair assessment as it ignores the overall currency performance, the strength and fundamentals of our economy and the outlook going forward. when we look at our regional peers, since the beginning of 2022 to now, the ringgit has actually traded stronger against the japanese yen, taiwanese dollar and the korean won1 while only marginally weakening against the chinese renminbi, the rupiah and rupee2. this also affirms the view that we are facing more of a us dollar strengthening cycle, a us dollar story and not a ringgit weakness story. from a growth perspective, malaysia continues to register expansion and rising economic activity, accompanied by 1 / 5 bis - central bankers'speeches low and stable inflation. the department of statistics'advanced estimates put gdp growth at 3. 9 % year - on - year in the first quarter of 2024, up from 3. 4 % in the preceding quarter. for the year, we are expecting a 4 - 5 % growth performance with inflation continuing to be stable and moderate. there are some risks to the latter, which could arise from the government's plans to undertake subsidy rationalisations. nonetheless, we expect these risks, if they materialize, to be temporary. more importantly, the subsidy rationalisation itself will be a major step forward in our overall structural reforms. with the fiscal reforms already committed to by the government, this will further consolidate the fiscal deficit. the near - term outlook is solid as we are already seeing recoveries in our exports and external trade, strengthening of tourist arrivals and continued progress from many of the multi - year investment projects by both the public and private sector. for the longer term and as a major component of our economic transformations, the government has laid out several national master plans that will guide us through and pave the path to our future growth, such as the national energy transition roadmap ( netr ) and the new industrial master plan 2030 ( nimp 2030 ). in addition to these positive economic and structural developments, our financial sector remains resilient. financial institutions are well capitalised, with ample buffers. the intermediation of financial services remains smooth. in fact, we've seen an uptick in loans to the business segment, accompanied by a fall in loan impairments. financing activity in the

capital markets continues to show healthy activity with new issuances of bonds and sukuk. total outstanding issuance rose by 7. 5 % in 2023 to more than rm2 trillion, reinforcing the trend of consistent growth from the previous year. the stock market has been doing well of late, up over 10 % for the year to date and breaching the rm2 trillion market capitalisation recently. public listings have been healthy and there is a pipeline of listings coming this year. we also see in the news a consistent stream of announcements on new investments, new contracts or projects secured, merger and acquisition activities and so on. all this bodes well for the economy and our prospects. however, when it comes to the ringgit, we need to do a bit more. we certainly expect our fundamentals to prevail and in the longer term, the ringgit will reflect these fundamentals. in the near term though, the ringgit is still facing a serious headwind from the strength of the us dollar overall. the high and tighter us interest rates will continue for some time. this has influenced behaviour among investors, corporates, exporters and importers as well as our public. for example, there is greater interest to invest in foreign currency assets. additionally, exporters could favour holding foreign currencies while importers front - load purchases and some corporates are even seen to accelerate repaying foreign currency debt. continuing in this manner sets the tone for a weakening ringgit which then further reinforces the trend. excessive depreciation is costly for businesses with greater import reliance. it also perpetuates negative sentiment towards our economy and markets. this is something we must break. what are we doing then to break this? firstly, we are deploying our primary tools to preserve stability and prevent excessive depreciation in the market. we have been intervening – selling foreign currencies and buying ringgit – and we have been doing so for some time. 2 / 5 bis - central bankers'speeches secondly, we have engaged with the market to encourage flows into the foreign exchange market. we worked with the government linked investment companies ( glics ) and government linked companies ( glcs ) to repatriate and convert their foreign incomes. we have extended these engagements to corporates and exporters in bringing their income and proceeds as well as managing their investments abroad and foreign currency balances. a conservative ballpark estimate puts the potential annual income conversions alone