GDP growth fell to 0.7% in 2019: MTI

Contraction under the manufacturing sector worsened to 1.5%.

Singapore’s economy grew 0.7% in 2019, crashing from 3.1% in 2018, advance estimates from the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) revealed. On a QoQ basis, GDP rose 0.8% YoY in Q4 from 0.7% in Q3 2019, moderating by 0.1ppt.

The contraction in the manufacturing sector worsened to 1.5% in 2019 from 0.1% in 2018, whilst the growth in the construction sector eased to 2.5% from 2.7% over the same period. Expansion in the services producing industries also slowed down to 1.1% from 1.2%.

In Q4, the manufacturing sector declined further by 2.1% YoY and reversed to a 7.3% QoQ saa contraction. This was blamed on fall in output in the electronics, chemicals and transport engineering clusters, despite expansions in the precision engineering, biomedical manufacturing and general manufacturing clusters.

Also read: PMI inched up 0.3 points to 50.1 in December

In contrast, the construction sector rose 2.1% YoY and QoQ saa, supported by public sector construction activities. Although it slowed down from 2.4% YoY in Q3, its QoQ growth turned around the 1.7% slip in the preceding quarter.

Furthermore, the services producing industries expanded 1.4% YoY and 2.4% QoQ, from 0.9% and 0.6% over the same period, respectively. This was primarily supported by the finance & insurance sector, the other services industries, and the business services sector.

However, wholesale & retail trade sector contracted in tandem with the weakness in our exports and retail sales performance.

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