Singapore raised its growth forecast for 2013 after the economy unexpectedly expanded last quarter, supporting the central bank's decision to forgo stimulus for the Southeast Asian nation.
The economy will grow 3.5 percent to 4 percent in 2013 and expand as much as 4 percent next year, the trade ministry said in a statement today. It had previously forecast growth of as much as 3.5 percent in 2013. Gross domestic product expanded an annualized 1.3 percent last quarter from the previous three months, compared with a 1 percent decline estimated earlier.
Asian economies are benefiting from a demand pickup aided by the U.S. Federal Reserve's extension of monetary stimulus even as global risks remain from budgetary wrangling in Washington and a nascent recovery in Europe. Trade-dependent Singapore said today export growth will rebound in 2014 after contracting this year, easing pressure on the central bank to allow its currency to weaken to support overseas shipments.
'We're seeing some green shoots coming from manufacturing recently,' Irvin Seah, an economist at DBS Group Holdings Ltd. in Singapore, said before the report. 'We're seeing improvement across Asia.'
GDP grew 5.8 percent in the three months through September from a year earlier, compared with an earlier estimate of a 5.1 percent expansion, today's report showed.
To contact the reporter on this story: Sharon Chen in Singapore at schen462@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephanie Phang at sphang@bloomberg.net
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