Singapore updates GDP for the primary quarter and financial projections for full 12 months 2021

A man wearing a face mask walks past a mural in Chinatown in Singapore on April 1, 2020.

Facebook Facebook Logo Log in to Facebook to connect with Roslan Rahman AFP | Getty Images

SINGAPORE – Singapore’s economy grew the fastest in more than a year in the first quarter of 2021, aided by stronger-than-expected manufacturing, official data showed on Tuesday.

However, the government warned of “heightened uncertainties” due to the Covid-19 pandemic in the coming months and kept its growth forecast for Singapore at 4% to 6% for 2021.

The Southeast Asian economy grew 1.3% year over year in the quarter ended March, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said in an economic update.

This is the highest growth rate in Singapore since the fourth quarter of 2019 and an improvement on official forecasts of expansion of 0.2%. The latest GDP pressures also surpassed the 0.9% year-over-year growth forecast by analysts in a Reuters poll.

Quarterly, the economy in Singapore grew 3.1% – faster than the previous government estimate of 2%.

This is how the various sectors developed in the first three months of 2021:

• The manufacturing sector grew by 10.7% compared to the previous year, which can be attributed to stronger production in the electronics, precision mechanics and chemistry clusters.
• Construction declined 22.7% yoy, negatively impacted by declines in public and private sector projects.
• The service industry shrank slightly by 0.5% compared to the previous year – compared to the 4.7% decline in the previous quarter.

Singapore has been grappling with a surge in Covid-19 cases in recent weeks, prompting the government to impose stricter measures for about a month from May 15. A planned air travel bubble with Hong Kong has also been postponed.

The Department of Commerce and Industry said the tightening of domestic restrictions and border controls was a “setback” for certain industries.

But Singapore’s economy as a whole should recover “along with the recovery in the global economy and further advances in the domestic vaccination program,” the ministry said. She added that she would review her economic forecast in August.

As of Monday, the country has reported more than 61,800 Covid cases and 32 deaths since early 2020, data from the Ministry of Health showed. Nearly 2 million people in Singapore – or around a third of the population – received at least one dose of the coronavirus virus on May 17, official data showed.