Weaker expansion in the manufacturing sector caused Singapore's economic growth to ease in the second quarter to 7.5% from a year earlier the Ministry of Trade and Industry said. Growth in real gross domestic product (GDP) in Southeast Asia's wealthiest economy was down from the 10.7% recorded in the first quarter to March.
The manufacturing sector is estimated to have grown at a slower pace of 10.2% in the second quarter, mainly due to lower output from the biomedical manufacturing cluster," the ministry said. That figure was down by about half from the 20.2% growth recorded in the first quarter, but above the 9.3% recorded for the full year 2005.
Manufacturing accounts for a third of Singapore's gross domestic product, worth 194 billion Singapore dollars (US$123 billion) last year.
On a quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted annualized basis, real GDP grew by 1.1%, easing from the 7% expansion in the previous quarter, the ministry said.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2006
