Singapore (11 August 2020) – Singapore’s gross domestic product in 2020 will contract by as much as -5% to -7% brought about by the challenging domestic and global economic conditions.
This is a slight change from its last forecast of a -4% to -7% contraction released in May.
In a press release Tuesday, the Ministry of Trade and Industry said there continues to be significant uncertainty over how the COVID 19 pandemic unfolds in the coming quarters and the trajectory of the domestic and global economic recoveries.
Unemployment rose to 2.9% year-on-year, with 131,500 jobs lost in the second quarter.
The city-state’s second quarter GDP shrank 13.2% compared to the same quarter last year (year-on-year). The number is worse compared to an initial estimate of 12.6% contraction released in mid-July.
The fall in GDP was due to the Circuit Breaker measures implemented to arrest the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic from 7 April to 1 June 2020.
With the exception of the Finance and Insurance sector, all sectors of the economy were in the red. The manufacturing sector shrank 0.7% year-on-year, reversing the 7.9% growth it registered in the previous quarter. The sector was weighed down by output declines in the transport engineering, general manufacturing and chemical clusters. On the other hand, output in the biomedical manufacturing, electronics and precision engineering clusters rose. Better than expected demand from the 5G market, data centres and cloud services supported the electronics and precision engineering clusters.
The construction sector shriveled 59.3% year-on-year, compared to the 1.2% contraction it experienced in the previous quarter. All construction activities were halted during the CB period. Construction firms were affected by the foreign worker movement restrictions at the dormitories.
The wholesale and retail sector contracted 8.2% year-on-year, down from the 5.6% decline in the first quarter. Wholesale trade was primarily weighed down by a contraction in the machinery and equipment supplies, while the retail trade segment was affected by closures of retail outlets during the CB period.
The transportation & storage sector also took a big hit contracting 39.2% year-on-year, down from the 7.7 percent in the first quarter. The air transport segment shrank on back of the steep decline in air passengers handled at Changi Airport due to global travel restrictions. -/-www.halaluniverse.net
