Singapore yesterday said a severe recession was over after two straight quarters of growth and predicted the economy would expand by up to 5 percent next year.
Data from the Ministry of Trade and Industry showed GDP rose 14.2 percent in the July-to-September period on a quarter-on-quarter annualized basis after a 21.7 percent surge in the previous three-month period.
“Effectively, the recession in Singapore is over,” Secretary of the Ministry of Trade and Industry Ravi Menon said.
“Economies around the world are now turning the corner,” he told a news conference. “Singapore has benefited from these global and regional trends.”
Private sector economists said that Singapore sprang out of recession faster than many had predicted, but cautioned that the road ahead remained bumpy.
“Logically, if it’s been accelerating so fast for two quarters, don’t be surprised to see a deceleration in the fourth quarter,” said Alvin Liew, an economist with Standard Chartered Bank.
Year-on-year, Singapore’s GDP grew 0.6 percent in the third quarter compared with a 3.3 percent contraction in the April-to-June period, the ministry said in its third-quarter economic survey.
A recession is technically deemed over after two successive periods of quarter-on-quarter growth.
The 0.6 percent annual growth in the third quarter was the economy’s first positive showing since the third quarter of last year, when it slid into a recession.
Growth in the third quarter was powered by the manufacturing sector, which expanded 26.6 percent on a quarterly basis following a 58.5 percent surge in the April-toJune period, the ministry said.
Other sectors also turned in a positive performance, including services, which grew 10.8 percent after a 7.9 percent increase in the second quarter, it said.
The services sector — which includes wholesale and retail — makes up two-thirds of Singapore’s economy.
In its outlook for next year, the ministry forecast economic growth of between 3 percent and 5 percent, which would be a sharp turnaround from the existing projection of a contraction of between 2 percent and 2.5 percent this year.
“Global economic developments suggest that the recession has ended in most countries,” the ministry said in a statement accompanying the quarterly survey.
“Singapore’s economic outlook for 2010 will be closely linked to global conditions,” it said.
The US economy’s recovery from its recession will be key to Singapore’s growth prospects, the ministry said.
“The key economy to watch is the US. We see the recovery there continuing into 2010 but at a sluggish pace,” Menon said.
“We do not expect a collapse in US private demand, however ... but private demand will nonetheless be sluggish,” he said.
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
The government is considering polices to increase rental subsidies for people living in social housing who get married and have children, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During an interview with the Plain Law Movement (法律白話文) podcast, Cho said that housing prices cannot be brought down overnight without affecting banks and mortgages. Therefore, the government is focusing on providing more aid for young people by taking 3 to 5 percent of urban renewal projects and zone expropriations and using that land for social housing, he said. Single people living in social housing who get married and become parents could obtain 50 percent more
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Democracies must remain united in the face of a shifting geopolitical landscape, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday, while emphasizing the importance of Taiwan’s security to the world. “Taiwan’s security is essential to regional stability and to defending democratic values amid mounting authoritarianism,” Tsai said at the annual forum in the Danish capital. Noting a “new geopolitical landscape” in which global trade and security face “uncertainty and unpredictability,” Tsai said that democracies must remain united and be more committed to building up resilience together in the face of challenges. Resilience “allows us to absorb shocks, adapt under
RSS