Japan

Construction material price indexes, sourced from the Japan Construction Research Institute (JCRI), are now available. This dataset encompasses the national level and 10 Japanese prefectures, further delineated by construction type and product type.

In the chart below, we focus on the Tokyo metropolitan area, comparing the year-on-year evolution of residential prices with construction material prices. The analysis indicates that house prices precede construction material prices, with the highest correlation above 0.7, when house prices are advanced by 6 months.

Malaysia

We have enhanced our existing coverage of the Malaysian business tendency survey by incorporating Table 1.3, which details expectations for gross revenues and the number of employees across major business sectors.

In the bar chart below, we compare the latest data for Q4 2024 with the averages before and after the pandemic. The construction sector, which was significantly impacted by the pandemic, is on a gradual path to recovery: its post-pandemic average gross revenue expectation remains negative, below -10%. However, Q4 2024 shows improvement, with year-on-year gross revenues anticipated to increase by 38%. Another notable positive contributor is the services sector, where gross revenues are expected to rise by 18% year-on-year in Q4 2024.