Singapore’s export-driven economy contracted 10.1 percent in the first quarter from the previous year, the government said yesterday, warning it saw no clear signs of a recovery in the immediate future.
The trade ministry maintained its forecast for the economy to shrink between 9 percent and 6 percent for the whole of this year as the city-state grappled with its worst recession since independence 44 years ago.
Compared with the previous quarter, GDP fell 14.6 percent in the first three months as Singapore’s major export markets remained mired in recession.
Singapore’s fortunes are dependent on the health of the world’s major economies, which buy much of the country’s exports, including microchips, pharmaceuticals and oilrigs.
The economy fell into recession late last year as the global economic downturn accelerated but still managed to grow 1.1 percent.
“The reason we have a forecast range of minus 6 [percent] to minus 9 percent [GDP decline] is because we really don’t know,” Ravi Menon, second permanent secretary at the trade ministry, said at a news briefing.
“What we are a little surer of is that we have probably seen the bottom ... But what we do not know is whether we are going to stay at the bottom for a little bit longer or whether we are going to start having a decisive rebound,” he said.
The key manufacturing sector contracted by 26.6 percent from the previous quarter’s shrinkage of 21.3 percent as the global downturn hurt demand for exports.
Services, another pillar of the economy, contracted 10.3 percent quarter-on-quarter as tourism-related arrivals tumbled, but the decline was less than the 15.0 percent fall in the previous quarter, the ministry said.
It painted a more optimistic outlook for the year, compared with its assessment last month, saying the sharp collapse in global trade late last year and early this year has tapered off.
“While trade is still expected to be weak for the rest of 2009, further declines of the magnitude seen earlier this year seem unlikely,” it said.
However, “on balance, there are still no decisive indicators of economic recovery,” the ministry said.
The trade ministry said it was maintaining its earlier projection that the country’s total trade with the rest of the world would shrink between 25 percent and 22 percent this year from last year. Key exports are forecast to contract by 13 percent to 10 percent this year.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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