SINGAPORE, May 25 — Sustained growth in the manufacturing and services sectors helped the Republic’s economy expand 2.7 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter, beating advance estimates and affirming the projections by several economists for slightly stronger growth.

Final data released by the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) today showed that growth was better than the advance estimates last month, which had expected the economy in the first three months to expand by 2.5 per cent year-on-year. Singapore’s economy expanded by 2.9 per cent in the final quarter of 2016.

The MTI maintained its growth forecast for Singapore’s gross domestic product (GDP) this year at 1 to 3 per cent, adding that growth would likely come in higher than last year’s 2 per cent “barring the materialisation of downside risks”.

“The outlook for the global economy has improved slightly since early 2017 on the back of an improvement in the growth outlook for the advanced economies. Overall, global growth this year is expected to be higher than that in 2016,” MTI said.

The ministry cautioned, however, that uncertainties and downside risks like rising anti-globalisation sentiments remained, despite the improved growth prospects for the global economy.

It added: “Against this external backdrop, trade-related sectors such as the manufacturing and transportation and storage sectors are likely to provide support to the Singapore economy in 2017.

“In particular, growth in the electronics and precision engineering clusters is expected to be sustained for the rest of the year on the back of the strong recovery in global demand for semiconductors and semiconductor manufacturing equipment.

“Likewise, the transportation and storage sector is likely to benefit from the projected improvement in global trade flows.

“Meanwhile, the information and communications and education, health and social services sectors are expected to remain resilient.”

Several economists have raised their projections of Singapore’s GDP performance for the first quarter to a range of 2.7 per cent to 3 per cent, following a stronger showing in manufacturing data last month.

The manufacturing sector expanded by 8 per cent for the first quarter - better than the advance estimates of a 6.6 per cent growth but moderating from the 11.5 per cent growth recorded in the previous quarter.

The sector’s growth was primarily driven by the electronics and precision engineering clusters, which expanded on the back of robust global demand for semiconductors and semiconductor manufacturing equipment.

Services producing industries, meanwhile, grew 1.6 per cent for the first three months of this year.

The construction sector shrank 1.4 per cent. — TODAY

This article was first published here.