Part of Singapore (Source:Internet)
Singapore (VNA) – Singapore ’s economy rose only 1.8 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of this year, according to estimates released by the country’s Ministry of Trade and Industry.
The Q1 economic growth surpassed domestic private businesses’ prospect of 1.6 percent. However, on a quarter-on-quarter seasonally-adjusted basis, the figure was far lower than the 6.2 percent-growth of the last quarter of 2015.
Singapore ’s exports in the first months of this year decreased sharply. Non-oil domestic exports (NODX) fell 9.9 percent and 15.6 percent in January and March, but rose 2.1 percent in February.
Notably, export turnover in March has shown its worst performance since February 2013.
The manufacturing sector contracted 2 percent year-on-year in the first quarter due to a decline in the output of the transportation, engineering and electronics clusters.
This led to the country’s Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) in the period coming below 50 points, which means that production activities are declining sharply and showing no recovery sign.
Economists forecast that the country’s economy will grow just 1.9 percent this year. Singapore recorded its economic growth of 2 percent in 2015, the slowest since 2009.-VNA
