The Malaysian economy has rebounded back last year after a massive slowdown. It has surged strongly up by 7.2 per cent in the year 2010.

Malaysia's central bank said on Thursday that it has given approval to five foreign commercial banks, so that they can open shop here as part of the current liberalization of its financial services sector.

Bank Negara Malaysia said that it will issue commercial banking licenses to Japan's Mizuho Corporate Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., France's BNP Paribas SA, Indonesia's PT Bank Mandiri and National Bank of Abu Dhabi.

It has appeared that interest rates have been kept on hold at 2% by Malaysia's central bank for its fourth consecutive policy meeting on Tuesday, as expected.

Bank Negara Malaysia expressed that the recent financial and economic indicators point towards a stabilization in economic conditions.

The bank added that recent deflation had a short effect because of falling fuel prices and easing pressure on food prices.

As per the media reports, the stronger signs of economic troughs have led to keeping the interest rates unchanged at 2% by Bank Negara. The revelation was made today at the monetary policy meeting.

In an e-mail, CIMB Investment Bank Bhd economic research head Lee Heng Guie specified, "Given more signs of improvement in both domestic and external conditions, we believe Bank Negara prefers to sit tight, allowing the impact of previous rate reductions and accelerating fiscal pump priming to flow through the economy."