SINGAPORE: Singapore reported dismal preliminary second quarter growth data on Friday, including the slowest pace of annual expansion in a decade, raising bets that a recession and monetary policy easing could be coming.
The quarter’s 0.1 percent gross domestic product (GDP) expansion was below the 1.1 percent forecast in a Reuters poll and the slowest annual growth since 2009’s second quarter, when it fell 1.2 percent.
The trade ministry also said the economy shrank 3.4 percent on a seasonally adjusted and annualized basis — the biggest contraction in nearly seven years compared with a poll forecast of 0.1 percent growth and January-March’s 3.8 percent expansion.
“It is quite disastrous... way below even the worst street forecasts,” said Selena Ling, head of treasury and strategy at OCBC Bank.
The slump in Singapore — often seen as a bellwether for health of the global economy — is the latest evidence that momentum has slowed across Asia as the year-long US-China trade war and sliding growth weigh on the region’s export-reliant economies.
Elsewhere in Asia, analysts say South Korea may also be flirting with recession, while China on Monday is expected to report its slowest economic growth in at least 27 years.
Ling and others say the main drag for Singapore remains the manufacturing sector.
In the second quarter, manufacturing contracted 3.8 percent from a year earlier after shrinking 0.4 percent in the quarter earlier.
Singapore authorities have previously said they will review their 2019 full-year GDP growth of 1.5-2.5 percent, and some analysts say there might be a recession in 2020.
The standard technical definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of economic contraction. Ling said she expects authorities to soon lower their full-year growth forecast to 0.5-1.5 percent.
FASTFACT
3.8% - Singapore’s manufacturing contracted 3.8 percent from a year earlier in the second quarter.
Electronics manufacturing output, the main driver of Singapore’s economy in the last two years, declined for the sixth consecutive month in May while exports saw its biggest decline in more than three years.
Khoon Goh of ANZ, who described Singapore’s economy as at a “stand-still” in the second quarter, said in a note that with global trade “still reeling” from trade tensions and broader global slowdown, downside growth risks remain.
In a Reuters poll done after release of the Q2 data, seven of 11 economists said they expect the Monetary Authority of Singapore to loosen its exchange-rate monetary policy in its next policy statement, due in October, with the other four forecasting no change.
Jeff Ng of Continuum Economics, who forecast no change, said “There was a one-in-four chance previously that the MAS will ease. Now, it has increased to 40 percent that they will ease on or before October.”
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