Singapore has announced that the growth for 2008 is a miserly 1.5% due to the global economy meltdown. No surprise at the numbers, although I was expecting around 1.9% instead. It goes to show how quickly the economy has deteriorated in the past few months, and especially for 4Q2008.
Even though I have started warning people of this recession since I came back from the US in June, the sudden deterioration of the global economy is also beyond my worst expectations. Our government as usual said that because Singapore is an open economy, we're very much affected by what's happening in the world, and thus we must work together to weather this storm.
| 4Q07 | 2007 | 1Q08 | 2Q08 | 3Q08 | 4Q08* | 2008* | ||
| Overall GDP | 5.4 | 7.7 | 6.9 | 2.2 | -0.3 | -2.6 | 1.5 |
* = Advance estimates based on Oct and Nov 2008
Seems like I was wrong for the figures for 1H2008. It's much worse than expected. However, if the estimates are from Oct and Nov 2008, then it's highly likely that the figure will be revised downwards if they boosted up the numbers with the "December effect". December was very bad in 2008 compared to the norm.
On a side note, CEOs from around the world, especially in the US, has announced that they are not going to get any bonus in 2008. So considering Singapore likes to follow their pay, will the Singapore ministers forgo their 2008 bonus to show their leadership and commitment to Singaporeans?
I'll wait and see.
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