Posted: 14 October 2010 0819 hrs
SINGAPORE:
Singapore's GDP expanded by 10.3 percent on a year-on-year basis in the
third quarter of 2010.
On a quarter-on-quarter basis the economy
contracted by 19.8 percent, a reversal from the growth of 27.3 percent
in the previous quarter.
The advance estimates released by the
Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) on Thursday said that the Singapore
economy remains on track to achieve the overall growth forecast of 13
to 15 percent for the whole of 2010.
Commenting on the sectoral
decline on a quarter-on-quarter basis, MTI said the manufacturing sector
contracted by 57 percent in the third quarter, after expanding by 67
percent in the preceding quarter.
It attributed the decline
largely to the biomedical manufacturing cluster, where some
pharmaceutical companies switched to producing a different value-mix of
active pharmaceutical ingredients. MTI also cited some plant maintenance
shutdowns during the quarter.
The construction sector also
contracted by 12 percent, compared to an expansion of 29 percent in the
preceding quarter. MTI said this was mainly due to the completion of key
commercial and industrial building projects earlier in the year.
The
services-producing industries registered a modest sequential growth of
1.6 percent, following a 13 percent expansion in the previous quarter.
MTI
said growth for the rest of the year will be underpinned by a number of
industry-specific factors.
It said continued growth in global
demand for electronic products will lend some support to the electronics
and precision engineering clusters.
It added that increasing
visitor arrivals, drawn by the Integrated Resorts, will continue to
bolster tourism in Singapore.
MTI will release the preliminary
GDP estimates for the third quarter of 2010, including performance by
sectors, sources of growth, inflation, employment and productivity, in
November 2010.
- CNA/de
talking about technical recession yr end.....