SINGAPORE: Economists have raised their forecasts for Singapore’s economic growth this year, as they upgraded their views on manufacturing and exports, a central bank survey showed on Wednesday.
Singapore’s gross domestic product is expected to grow 3.3 percent this year, according to the median forecast of 23 economists surveyed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), up from the 2.5 percent median forecast in the previous MAS survey published in September.
Manufacturing is expected to grow 10.6 percent in 2017, up from the previous median forecast of 6.6 percent, while non-oil domestic exports were seen expanding 9.0 percent, up from 7.4 percent previously.
The central bank’s latest survey also showed that economist expect Singapore’s GDP to grow 3.0 percent in 2018, up from the previous median forecast of 2.5 percent.
Data released last month showed that Singapore’s economy grew 5.2 percent in third quarter compared to the same period a year earlier, the quickest year-on-year pace in nearly four years, thanks to a boom in manufacturing that some analysts say will encourage tighter monetary policy in 2018. In November, the government also revised up its GDP growth forecast range for the whole of 2017 to 3.0 to 3.5 percent, from the previous projection of 2.0 to 3.0 percent. The government expects the economy to grow 1.5 to 3.5 percent in 2018.
The latest MAS survey’s median forecast for year-on-year GDP growth in the fourth quarter rose to 2.6 percent from 1.8 percent in the previous survey.
Singapore’s advance estimate of fourth-quarter GDP is due to be released in January.
The latest MAS survey showed that economists expect the central bank’s core inflation gauge to rise 1.5 percent for the whole of 2017, down slightly from their previous median forecast of 1.6 percent. The median forecast for core inflation in 2018 was unchanged at 1.6 percent.
According to the MAS survey, economists’ median forecast for all-items CPI inflation in 2017 was lowered to 0.6 percent from 0.8 percent in the previous survey.
Their forecast for headline inflation in 2018 was lowered to 1.0 percent, compared to 1.4 percent previously.
Economists estimated that the Singapore dollar will trade at S$1.340 per U.S. dollar at the end of next year. The Singapore dollar was trading at around S$1.3520 per U.S. dollar on Wednesday.
Singapore’s central bank kept its exchange-rate based monetary policy steady in October but changed a reference to maintaining current settings for an extended period, a shift that analysts said created room for a tightening next year.
