Singapore economy performs poorly

 


Guess the announcement of the election will have to wait a little longer...

11.04.05 1.40pm

From the New Zealand Herald...

Singapore's economy shrank at an annualised rate of 5.8 per cent in the first quarter, the weakest performance since a Sars health scare nearly two years ago and about seven times worse than market forecasts. The seasonally adjusted fall from the previous quarter reported by the government on Monday reflected a sharp slowdown in biomedical manufacturing in Singapore, which is a key Asian base for multinational drug firms such as Pfizer Inc. "It's clearly below expectations," said Wong Keng Siong, economist at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi. "Construction is still very disappointing. I think second quarter growth is going to be very weak. We have 2.4 per cent growth (year-on-year) in the first quarter, if manufacturing does not recover, the likelihood is for the second quarter to show very marginal growth."