Malaysia's economic growth is expected to continue to ease between January to March 2019, according to the latest data released on Thursday.

Malaysian Statistics Department said in a statement that the leading index, which monitors the economic performance direction in an average of four to six months ahead, decreased 1.7 percent in September on annual basis.

Meanwhile, the monthly change of leading index posted a negative growth of 0.8 percent to 117.9 points in the same month as compared to 118.9 points in August.

The contraction was due to the declining of real imports of semi-conductors, real imports of other basic precious and other non-ferrous metals and number of housing units approved.

The coincident index which examines the current economic activity decreased 0.7 percent in September.

However, the annual change of coincident index grew 3.4 percent in the reference month.