DOSM (Jabatan Perangkaan Malaysia, the Department of Statistics Malaysia) is the federal department that produces Malaysia's official statistics under the Statistics Act 1965 (Act 415). It releases over 300 publications a year — GDP, the Consumer Price Index, labour force, external trade, industrial production and more — and publishes every release date in advance through its Advance Release Calendar at dosm.gov.my/portal-main/arc, with the underlying data free to download from open.dosm.gov.my.
- Operates under the Statistics Act 1965 (Act 415) — royal assent 22 June 1965, in force 16 August 1965, revised edition 1989
- A federal department under the Ministry of Economy, headed by the Chief Statistician Malaysia (Ketua Perangkawan Malaysia)
- Began in 1949 as the Bureau of Statistics under the Statistics Ordinance 1949; renamed in 1965
- Publishes an Advance Release Calendar naming the exact date of every 2026 publication, downloadable as CSV, Parquet, iCalendar or a subscribable Google Calendar
- Flagship series: GDP (quarterly), CPI, labour force, external trade, IPI, PPI and Malaysian Economic Indicators (monthly)
- Advance GDP estimates land roughly four weeks before the full quarterly GDP release
- OpenDOSM data is released under CC BY 4.0 and reachable through the data.gov.my API
- Digital dissemination became DOSM's primary publication channel from 1 May 2026
Who this applies to: Anyone who needs to verify a Malaysian economic or social statistic at source, or to know in advance when the next official figure will be published.
On this page
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 |
| Advance GDP estimates | Quarterly, ahead of full GDP | GDP overview |
| Consumer Price Index | Monthly | Inflation and the CPI |
| Labour Force | Monthly and quarterly | Unemployment and the labour force |
| External Trade Statistics | Monthly | 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
.icsfile — for any other calendar app. - An API call via
data.gov.my— documented atdeveloper.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, inflation and the CPI, or unemployment and the labour force. For monetary and financial statistics — the policy rate, reserves, banking system data — the publishing authority is not DOSM but Bank Negara Malaysia.
How do I find out when the next CPI or GDP figure is released?
Use DOSM's Advance Release Calendar at dosm.gov.my/portal-main/arc. The same data is published as a machine-readable dataset (arc_dosm) on OpenDOSM and data.gov.my, with release date, English and Malay titles, category and frequency for every publication in the year. You can subscribe to it as a Google Calendar or download an .ics file.
What is the difference between advance GDP estimates and the actual GDP release?
The advance estimate is a preliminary reading published about four weeks ahead of the full quarterly national accounts. For the second quarter of 2026, DOSM published advance estimates on 17 July 2026 and scheduled the actual GDP release for 14 August 2026. Cite the full release where precision matters.
Is DOSM data free to reuse?
Datasets published through OpenDOSM carry a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence, so you may reuse them with attribution. Check the licence note on the individual dataset page, since some datasets on data.gov.my originate from other agencies.
Which ministry does DOSM sit under?
DOSM is a federal government department listed under the Ministry of Economy in the ministry's official agencies directory. Ministerial portfolios in Malaysia are reorganised periodically, so confirm the current arrangement on ekonomi.gov.my or dosm.gov.my before relying on it in a formal document.
Sources
- Act 415 — Statistics Act 1965 — Attorney General's Chambers of Malaysia
- Advance Release Calendar — Department of Statistics Malaysia
- DOSM's Advance Release Calendar (dataset arc_dosm) — OpenDOSM, Department of Statistics Malaysia
- Publications — Department of Statistics Malaysia
- Publications — OpenDOSM, Department of Statistics Malaysia
- Advance Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Estimates, Second Quarter 2026 — Department of Statistics Malaysia
- Background, Role & Function — Department of Statistics Malaysia
- Agensi di bawah Kementerian Ekonomi / Ministry of Economy's Agencies — Ministry of Economy
- Data Catalogue — OpenDOSM, Department of Statistics Malaysia
Change history
| Version | Date | Change | By |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01.00 | 24 Jul 2026 | Approved and published. | — |