Singapore’s economy unexpectedly expanded in the second quarter, staving off technical recession fears in the city-state amid a global slowdown.
Gross domestic product in the three months through June increased 0.3% from the previous quarter, the Ministry of Trade and Industry said in its advanced estimate Friday.
The MTI figure, mostly computed from data in the first two months of the quarter, compares with the median estimate of a 0.2% contraction in a Bloomberg survey and a decline of 0.4% in the January-March period.
On a year-on-year basis, the economy expanded 0.7% in the second quarter after a 0.4% gain in the prior period, according to the report. Survey respondents had predicted a 0.5% growth from the same period in 2022.
Concerns over recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth, materialized in June with data showing industrial output plunged 10.8% from a year earlier and non-oil domestic exports shrank for an eighth consecutive month on slowing external demand.
In May, the MTI said the economy was set to expand around the midpoint of a 0.5%-2.5% range this year. That number is subject to revision when Singapore’s second-quarter growth numbers are finalized in August.
--With assistance from Ailing Tan.
