Free forex

KUALA LUMPUR (Thomson Financial) - Malaysia's manufacturing sales in November rose 3.8 percent from a year earlier, reversing a 2 percent decline in October, as sales of refined petroleum products rose, the Statistics Department said Thursday.

Sales by value were up 2.5 percent in November from the previous month, the department said in a preliminary release.

Manufacturing sales in the month totaled 45.9 billion ringgit against 44.2 billion ringgit a year earlier.

Sales of refined petroleum products, which account for about 20 percent of the industry's total, increased 32 percent from the previous year to 8.97 billion ringgit.

The number of employees engaged in the manufacturing sector, which accounts for about a third of Malaysia's gross domestic product, grew 1.8 percent to 1.103 million from 1.083 million a year before.

For the first 11 months of 2007, manufacturing sales by value reached 474.3 billion ringgit, up 1.4 percent from the previous year.