Singapore economy may shrink 2 percent this year

The Singaporean government on January 2 lowered its economic growth forecast for the country this year, warning that the economy could shrink as much as 2 percent due to the impact of the global economic slump.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry projected a range of between minus 2 percent growth and zero percent expansion for the economy in 2009, lower than its previous forecast in November of between minus 1 percent and growth of 2 percent.

This comes on the back of a sharp contraction in the last quarter of 2008 when gross domestic product shrank 2.6 percent over the same period in 2007 and 12.5 percent from the previous quarter, it said in its advance estimates. Singapore's GDP had also contracted in the second and third quarters, sending the economy into a technical recession.

Kyodo News quoted Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong as saying in his New Year's Eve speech on December 31 that Singapore 's economic growth for the whole of 2008 slumped to 1.5 percent - worse than the government's prediction of 2.5 percent -after growing a robust 7.7 percent in 2007.

vna

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