MTI narrows Singapore’s full-year growth forecast; Q2 growth revised down to 4.4%

SINGAPORE’S official full-year growth forecast has been narrowed to between 3 per cent and 4 per cent, with second quarter growth revised downwards to 4.4 per cent year on year, slower than the earlier advance estimate of 4.8 per cent, according to data from the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) on Thursday (Aug 11) morning.

But the updated Q2 growth figure was still an improvement on the 3.8 per cent growth recorded in the previous quarter.

On a seasonally-adjusted, quarterly basis, Q2 GDP was down 0.2 per cent on the quarter before, a reversal from Q1’s growth of 0.8 per cent. This was partly due to downward revisions in the figures for the manufacturing sector, in particular the electronics and chemicals clusters, the latter of which “came down a bit weaker than expected”, MTI chief economist Yong Yik Wei told reporters at a morning briefing.