Singapore economy grew by 0.6 percent in the third quarter of 2016 year-on-year, according to advance estimates by Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) released on Friday.
The 0.6 percent increase in the third quarter is lower than the 2.0 percent growth in the previous quarter, said MTI in a press release.
On a quarter-on-quarter seasonally-adjusted annualized basis, Singapore economy contracted by 4.1 percent, a reversal from the 0. 2 percent growth in the preceding quarter.
Manufacturing sector contracted by 1.1 percent year-on-year in the third quarter, a reversal from the 1.4 percent expansion in the previous quarter. The sector was primarily weighed down by a decline in the output of the transport engineering, biomedical manufacturing and general manufacturing cluster, said the ministry. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, manufacturing sector contracted at an annualized rate of 17.4 percent, a pullback from the 2.1 percent growth in the preceding quarter.
MTI said construction sector slowed marginally to 2.5 percent in the third quarter year-on-year, from 2.6 percent recorded in the previous quarter. The slowdown was due to a sharper decline in private sector construction activities.
Construction sector expanded at an annualized rate of 0.5 percent quarter-on-quarter, moderating from the 1.1 percent expansion in the preceding quarter. Growth in services producing industries came in at 0.1 percent in the third quarter year-on-year, a contraction from the 1.2 percent growth in the preceding quarter, according to the press release.
MTI said growth was weighed down primarily by the wholesale and retail trade sector. Within the sector, the wholesale trade segment contracted while the retail segment posted positive growth, bolstered by motor vehicle sales. On a quarter-on-quarter seasonally-adjusted annualized basis, the services producing industries shrank by 1.9 percent, extending the 0.9 percent contraction in the previous quarter. Singapore government in August shaved its full-year economic growth forecast to between 1 percent and 2 percent.
While Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for Economic and Social Policies Tharman Shanmugaratnam cautioned that the country's economy would see growth come in at the lower end.
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