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Economists stick to 2024 Singapore growth outlook after Q1 GDP beats forecasts

While growth in the major economies is expected to pick up in the later part of this year alongside anticipated interest rate cuts, downside risks in the global economy remain

Tessa Oh
Published Thu, May 23, 2024 · 05:57 PM
    • The Ministry of Trade and Industry has kept to its full-year growth forecast for 2024 of between 1 and 3 per cent.
    • The Ministry of Trade and Industry has kept to its full-year growth forecast for 2024 of between 1 and 3 per cent. PHOTO: YEN MENG JIIN, BT

    PRIVATE-SECTOR economists largely maintained their 2024 full-year growth forecast for Singapore, even after first-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) beat expectations to come in at 2.7 per cent year on year.

    The first-quarter GDP print, which was unchanged from April’s advance estimate, was above the 2.5 per cent year-on-year growth that private-sector economists were expecting, indicated a Bloomberg poll. It was also an improvement from the previous quarter’s 2.2 per cent growth.

    On a seasonally adjusted quarterly basis, the economy expanded marginally by 0.1 per cent, unchanged from the advance estimate, but slower than the previous quarter’s 1.2 per cent growth. It also beat economists’ median expectation of a 0.3 per cent contraction.

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