Singapore Economy Could be Headed for a Contraction

If recent weaker-than-expected economic data from Singapore is anything to go by, the city-state is heading for a quarterly growth contraction, economists say.

A negative quarterly gross domestic product (GDP) reading for the third quarter should not be a surprise given an unusually firm annualized quarter-on-quarter rise of 15.5 percent in the second quarter, but the scale of the contraction is something to watch for, they add. The latest GDP data is expected later this month.

CIMB Regional Economist Seng Wun Song forecasts that Singapore’s economy probably contracted 2-3 percent on a seasonally adjusted, quarter-on-quarter annualized basis in the third quarter. Hak Bin Chua, an economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BoAML), is looking for a 4-5 percent contraction.

via CNBC

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza