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Singapore economy expands by 2.6 pct in Q1

Xinhua, May 26, 2015 Adjust font size:

Singapore economy grew by 2.6 percent on a year-on-year basis in the first quarter of 2015, faster than the 2.1 percent expansion in the previous quarter, said the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) in a news release Tuesday.

On a quarter-on-quarter seasonally-adjusted annualized basis, Singapore economy expanded by 3.2 percent, moderating from the 4.9 percent growth in the previous quarter.

MTI also announced that the GDP growth forecast for this year is maintained at 2.0 to 4.0 percent.

Primarily due to the decline in the output of the transport engineering, electronics and biomedical manufacturing clusters, the manufacturing sector contracted by 2.7 percent year-on-year, extending the 1.3 percent decline in the previous quarter.

In contrast, finance and insurance sector expanded by 7.9 percent year-on-year, following the 10.3 percent growth in the previous quarter. The increase was largely underpinned by the banking cluster, which experienced resilient loans growth and higher net interest margins.

Growth in the construction sector improved to 3.1 percent year- on-year from 0.7 percent in the previous quarter, supported by a pick-up in private sector construction activities.

The wholesale and retail trade sector grew by 4.1 percent on a year-on-year basis, faster than the 0.6 percent growth in the last quarter.

The transportation and storage sector rebounded to post growth of 1.5 percent year-on-year, compared to the 0.4 percent decline in the previous quarter, mainly supported by the water transport segment.

MTI noted that the global economic outlook has remained broadly unchanged since the start of the year. Advanced economies are expected to see a pick-up in growth, emerging markets and developing economies are projected to see slower growth.

U.S. economy is projected to see faster growth supported by domestic demand and Eurozone economy is also expected to improve, said MTI in the news release.

However, China's growth is projected to ease. The most key ASEAN economies are likely to improve on the back of resilient domestic demand this year.

Taking the expected improvement of global economy in 2015, the impact of low oil prices may have caused as well as Singapore's tight labor market into consideration, MTI said Singapore economy is expected to grow at a modest pace of 2.0 to 4.0 percent this year. Endi