Malaysia's agriculture sector increased by 0.1 percent in 2022 as compared to a contraction of 0.1 percent in the previous year, official data showed Friday.

The Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) said in a statement that the growth was attributed to oil palm commodity, which recorded a growth of positive 3.8 percent.

Oil palm was the main contributor to the value added of the agriculture sector with 36.1 billion ringgit (7.56 billion U.S. dollars), or 36.5 percent.

This was followed by other agriculture with 28.1 billion ringgit and livestock with 16.5 billion ringgit.

Meanwhile, the production of major commodity crops in 2022 continued to decrease as compared to 2021, except for fresh fruit bunches (oil palm) and pepper.

The production of fresh fruit bunches (oil palm) was the highest among agricultural commodities, which recorded 94.81 million tons, an increase of 3.7 percent as compared to the previous year.

The production of vegetables in Malaysia also showed an increase of 7 percent in 2022.

The country's exports of agri-food and selected agricultural products increased from 154.5 billion ringgit in 2021 to 188.6 billion ringgit in 2022.

At the same time, the imports of agri-food and selected agricultural products also increased to 144.4 billion ringgit in 2022, as compared to 120.5 billion ringgit in 2021. (1 ringgit equals 0.21 U.S. dollar)