Economists downgrade Singapore’s 2023 growth forecast, warn of technical recession

PRIVATE-SECTOR economists have downgraded their 2023 forecast for Singapore’s economic growth, with a worse-than-expected first-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) figure also prompting some to warn of a technical recession.

Singapore’s economy grew 0.1 per cent year on year in Q1, advance estimates from the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) on Friday (Apr 14) showed, slower than the 2.1 per cent expansion recorded in the fourth quarter of last year.

On a seasonally adjusted quarter-on-quarter basis, the economy contracted by 0.7 per cent, reversing from the 0.1 per cent increase the quarter before.