Singapore GDP surprises with 1.8% full-year growth in 2016

THE health of the Singapore economy surprised many - even the government itself - with a full-year growth for 2016 of 1.8 per cent, advance estimates released by the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) on Tuesday morning show.

This also meant that it averted a technical recession in the fourth quarter as manufacturing output surged. It grew a steady 9.1 per cent on an annualised basis from the previous quarter. It had shrunk by 1.9 per cent in the third quarter. On a year-on-year basis, the economy grew by 1.8 per cent in Q4, better than the 1.2 per cent in Q3.

Manufacturing grew by 6.5 per cent year-on-year in the fourth quarter, or a 14.6 per cent quarter-on-quarter growth.

These numbers came in stronger than the government's expectations. It earlier had put full-year growth in 2016 to be between 1 to 1.5 per cent. Just three days ago, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in his New Year speech that it would grow "one-plus per cent" in 2016.

A poll of economists by Reuters put the median forecast for Q4 quarterly growth at 3.7 per cent.

Fuller estimates of Q4 and full-year 2016 growth will be released in February 2017.

For 2017, MTI previously forecasted full-year growth to be between 1 and 3 per cent.