# DOSM — Department of Statistics Malaysia: What It Publishes, and When

> Agency entity page for Jabatan Perangkaan Malaysia — its statutory basis, the flagship series it releases, the Advance Release Calendar that tells you the exact date each one lands, and the open-data channels that let you check any figure yourself.

- Category: government
- Language: en
- Status: published
- Updated: 2026-07-24
- Canonical: https://negaraku.md/en/government/dosm

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Almost every Malaysian economic number you will ever read — the growth rate a
minister quotes, the inflation figure in a news headline, the unemployment rate in
a bank's research note — starts in the same building in Putrajaya. Knowing how that
building works turns you from someone who repeats figures into someone who can
check them.

## At a glance

| | |
| --- | --- |
| Full name | Jabatan Perangkaan Malaysia / Department of Statistics Malaysia |
| Type | Federal government department |
| Parent ministry | Ministry of Economy |
| Enabling statute | Statistics Act 1965 (Act 415), revised edition 1989 |
| Royal assent / in force | 22 June 1965 / 16 August 1965 |
| Head of department | Chief Statistician Malaysia (Ketua Perangkawan Malaysia) |
| Headquarters | Block C6 & C7, Complex C, Federal Government Administrative Centre, 62514 Putrajaya |
| Websites | `dosm.gov.my` (portal), `open.dosm.gov.my` (open data) |

The department traces back further than 1965: it began in 1949 as the Bureau of
Statistics under the Statistics Ordinance 1949, then limited to external trade and
estate agriculture, and took its present name in 1965 under the new Act. The Act
itself was amended in 1975, given a revised edition on 28 December 1989 as Act
415, and reprinted in 2001 and 2006. DOSM maintains a state office in every state.

## The flagship series

DOSM releases over 300 publications a year. These are the ones most often cited:

| Series | Frequency | Explained here |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Gross Domestic Product | Quarterly, plus annual state GDP | [GDP overview](/en/economy/gdp-overview) |
| Advance GDP estimates | Quarterly, ahead of full GDP | [GDP overview](/en/economy/gdp-overview) |
| Consumer Price Index | Monthly | [Inflation and the CPI](/en/economy/inflation-cpi) |
| Labour Force | Monthly and quarterly | [Unemployment and the labour force](/en/economy/unemployment-labour-force) |
| External Trade Statistics | Monthly | [External trade](/en/economy/external-trade) |
| Index of Industrial Production | Monthly | — |
| Producer Price Index | Monthly | — |
| Malaysian Economic Indicators | Monthly (leading, coincident, lagging) | — |

Beyond those, the publication catalogue is organised by domain: national accounts,
prices, labour market, external sector, manufacturing, construction, services,
mining and quarrying, agriculture, environment, household income and expenditure,
population and demography, small area statistics, and ad hoc releases.

## How to know a figure before it is news

This is the part most people miss. **DOSM publishes its release dates in
advance.** The Advance Release Calendar lists every scheduled publication with its
release date, and a press statement goes to the media on the day of release with a
specified embargo time.

It is not only a web page. The same content is a structured dataset (`arc_dosm`)
carrying publication ID, release timestamp, English and Malay titles, category,
frequency and the reference period. You can take it as:

- **CSV or Parquet** — for analysis.
- **A subscribable Google Calendar** — release dates appear in your own calendar.
- **An iCalendar `.ics` file** — for any other calendar app.
- **An API call** via `data.gov.my` — documented at `developer.data.gov.my`.

To see the shape of a typical month, here is what DOSM scheduled for July 2026:

| Date | Release |
| --- | --- |
| 1 July | GDP by State, 2025 |
| 9 July | Index of Industrial Production, May 2026 |
| 9 July | Monthly Manufacturing Statistics, May 2026 |
| 17 July | Consumer Price Index, June 2026 |
| 17 July | Advance GDP Estimates, Q2 2026 |
| 20 July | Monthly External Trade Statistics, June 2026 |
| 24 July | Malaysian Economic Indicators, May 2026 |

Two things fall out of that table. Monthly price and trade data arrive within
roughly two to three weeks of the reference month, while production indices run a
longer lag. And the advance GDP estimate for Q2 2026 came on 17 July, with the
actual GDP release scheduled for 14 August — a four-week gap in which the
preliminary number circulates widely and is then quietly revised.

## Common mistakes when citing DOSM

- **Quoting the advance estimate as the GDP figure.** It is preliminary. If the
  full release exists, cite that instead.
- **Mixing monthly and quarterly labour force data.** DOSM publishes both. They are
  different products with different reference periods.
- **Treating a dashboard as the source.** Dashboards refresh. Cite the dated
  publication or the dataset, and record the date you retrieved it.
- **Assuming a portal link is permanent.** DOSM made digital dissemination its
  primary publication channel from 1 May 2026 and has migrated portal versions
  before. Archive the PDF you rely on.
- **Reusing data without attribution.** OpenDOSM datasets are CC BY 4.0 — free to
  reuse, but attribution is a condition, not a courtesy.

## Where the data lives

| Channel | What it is best for |
| --- | --- |
| `dosm.gov.my` | Dated releases, technical notes, the release calendar |
| `open.dosm.gov.my` | Dashboards and the machine-readable data catalogue |
| `data.gov.my` | The whole-of-government open data portal, DOSM included |
| `developer.data.gov.my` | API documentation for programmatic access |

The catalogue itself spans demography, households and income, national accounts,
prices, labour markets, education, environment and the economic sectors — with
several datasets sourced from other agencies rather than DOSM, so check the
provenance note before attributing a figure to the department.

## What's next

If you are chasing a specific number rather than the institution, start with
[GDP overview](/en/economy/gdp-overview),
[inflation and the CPI](/en/economy/inflation-cpi), or
[unemployment and the labour force](/en/economy/unemployment-labour-force). For
monetary and financial statistics — the policy rate, reserves, banking system data
— the publishing authority is not DOSM but
[Bank Negara Malaysia](/en/economy/bank-negara-malaysia).

## Sources

- Act 415 — Statistics Act 1965 — https://lom.agc.gov.my/act-detail.php?act=415&lang=BI&language=BI (Attorney General's Chambers of Malaysia)
- Advance Release Calendar — https://www.dosm.gov.my/portal-main/arc (Department of Statistics Malaysia)
- DOSM's Advance Release Calendar (dataset arc_dosm) — https://open.dosm.gov.my/data-catalogue/arc_dosm (OpenDOSM, Department of Statistics Malaysia)
- Publications — https://www.dosm.gov.my/portal-main/publication (Department of Statistics Malaysia)
- Publications — https://open.dosm.gov.my/publications (OpenDOSM, Department of Statistics Malaysia)
- Advance Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Estimates, Second Quarter 2026 — https://www.dosm.gov.my/portal-main/release-content/advance-gross-domestic-product-gdp-estimates-q22026 (Department of Statistics Malaysia)
- Background, Role & Function — https://www.dosm.gov.my/portal-main/article/background-role-function/ (Department of Statistics Malaysia)
- Agensi di bawah Kementerian Ekonomi / Ministry of Economy's Agencies — https://ekonomi.gov.my/en/department-profile/organisation/ministry-economys-agencies (Ministry of Economy)
- Data Catalogue — https://open.dosm.gov.my/data-catalogue (OpenDOSM, Department of Statistics Malaysia)

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License: CC BY-SA 4.0