Singapore’s economy up 4.8% in 2025; Q4 GDP comes in at 5.7%
On a seasonally adjusted, quarterly basis, economic growth is at 1.9%
[SINGAPORE] The Republic’s economy expanded 4.8 per cent year on year in 2025, advance estimates from the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) showed on Friday (Jan 2) morning.
Aside from being faster than the revised 4.4 per cent growth recorded in the previous year, 2025’s gross domestic product expansion also exceeded the official forecast of “around 4 per cent”, to which MTI upgraded last November.
In 2026, MTI expects Singapore’s economy to grow by between 1 and 3 per cent.
Prime Minister Lawrence Wong revealed the 4.8 per cent full-year growth figure in his New Year’s Day message on Wednesday evening.
In his speech, he warned that Singapore “must be realistic” about the difficulty of maintaining this growth rate.
“Fractured trade and geopolitical tensions are not transient problems, but permanent features of a fragmented world,” he said.
Nevertheless, he said “economic success is a means to an end”, and what matters is that Singaporeans benefit from the nation’s progress.
To do so, the government will work alongside the labour movement and employers to help workers grow and progress in their careers. PM Wong added that areas such as education, housing and healthcare will also be improved.
Fourth-quarter GDP growth came in at 5.7 per cent, faster than the revised 4.3 per cent growth for Q3, and higher than the 5 per cent growth booked for the same period in 2024.
On a seasonally adjusted, quarterly basis, the economy grew 1.9 per cent in Q4, easing from the previous quarter’s 2.4 per cent expansion.
Q4’s performance was in part due to the “strong growth” in the manufacturing sector, which jumped to 15 per cent from 4.9 per cent in the previous quarter.
For the whole of 2025, manufacturing grew 7.6 per cent year on year. MTI attributed the sector’s performance largely to higher output in the biomedical manufacturing and electronics clusters.
Growth in biomedical manufacturing was driven mainly by robust output in the pharmaceuticals segment; the electronics cluster was supported by sustained demand for artificial intelligence-related semiconductors, servers and related products.
The construction sector expanded by 4.2 per cent year on year in Q4, moderating from the 5.1 per cent growth recorded in the preceding quarter. Growth was supported by increases in both public and private sector construction activity.
The services industries grew 3.8 per cent year on year in Q4, slowing from the 4.1 per cent recorded in the previous quarter. For the full year, the sector rose 4.1 per cent.
Within services, the information and communications, finance and insurance, and professional services cluster posted the strongest growth, at 4.2 per cent year on year.
This was slower than the 4.5 per cent growth in the previous quarter and the 4.4 per cent recorded in the same period the year before.
Still, on a seasonally adjusted, quarterly basis, the cluster accelerated to 5.6 per cent, from the 1.8 per cent expansion booked in Q3.
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