Rapid Economic Growth and Natural Gas Consumption Nexus: Looking forward from Perspective of 11th Malaysian Plan

Abstract

The present study investigates the relationship between economic growth and energy consumption by incorporating CO2 emissions, natural gas consumption and population in Malaysia. Annual data and F-bound test and granger causality have applied to test the existence of long run relationship between the series. The results show that variables are cointegrated for long run relationship. The results also indicate that natural gas consumption is an important contributing factor to energy demand and hence economic growth in case of Malaysia. The causality analysis highlights that the feedback hypothesis exists between economic growth and energy consumption. While, conservative hypothesis is validated between natural gas consumption and economic growth which implies that economic growth will push natural gas consumption policies in future. This study opens up new direction for policy makers to formulate a comprehensive natural gas policy to sustain environment for long span of time in case to achieve 11th MP targets.