Singapore’s economy has shown a strong performance in the first half of this year, clocking in a growth of 4.5 per cent in the first quarter and 3.9 per cent in the second quarter. The outcome is an overall result of 4.2 per cent growth y-o-y for the first half of 2018. Singapore’s economic growth is expected to slow down in the second half of 2018, with some concerns on global trade tensions as a result of tariffs announced by the United States of America on some of its trade partners such as Turkey as well as China, which has in turn announced its own measures to tax goods from the United States. However, the Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry has kept its 2018 forecast of 2.5 to 3.5 per cent, following last year’s expansion of 3.6 per cent. The current growth is supported by an active manufacturing sector as well as the service sector. In particular, manufacturing grew 10.8 per cent in Q1 and 10.2 per cent in Q2. While the service sector still expanded by 2.8 per cent in Q1, it is less than the 4 per cent that was achieved in the first quarter. The real estate sector’s Q3 result may also be affected as a result of the property cooling measures as well as the hungry ghosts’ month, where transactions on property typically show a decrease, especially from the Chinese population.
