Businesses see GDP growth racing past official forecasts

Singapore

THE Singapore economy could blow past government forecasts to bring 2017's full-year gross domestic product (GDP) growth to between 3.4 per cent and 3.7 per cent, says the latest Business Times-Singapore University of Social Sciences (BT-SUSS) Business Climate Q3 survey.

This range is above and beyond the official forecast for GDP growth, which is expected to come in at the upper end of the 2 per cent to 3 per cent range for the year.

The BT-SUSS survey based its growth prediction on regression analyses from survey indicators over the years, and factored in its forecast of 3.5 per cent to 4.6 per cent growth for the fourth quarter of this year.

The poll, carried out between Sept 20 and Oct 17, collected responses from 164 firms across industries. It was led by consult…