Q3 growth not enough to lift full-year GDP forecasts

Singapore

IT was a close shave.

Singapore's economy threw a nice little surprise for observers on Wednesday as it registered a 0.1 per cent quarter-on-quarter growth in the third quarter, narrowly avoiding a technical recession.

But with economic growth still not gaining enough momentum, optimism remains muted, with the government and several private banks here keeping growth forecasts unchanged.

"The Singapore economy is projected to expand at a modest pace in 2015 and 2016, with growth slightly weaker than earlier envisaged," the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said, with GDP (gross domestic product) growth coming in at around 2 to 2.5 per cent for this year.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) on Wednesday released advance estimates of th…