Singapore economy is expected to grow between minus 2.0 percent and plus 1.0 percent in 2009, the country's Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) said on Friday, Xinhua reported.
The forecast is lower than the minus 1.0 percent to plus 2.0 percent range it forecasted in November 2008.
The ministry said the global economic crisis has worsened since November, 2008, with sharp declines in global demand, trade and investments.
"These developments will affect the sectors in the Singapore economy that rely on the movement of goods and services in the region, such as the wholesale and retail sector, and the transport and storage sector," the ministry said.
The manufacturing is expected to weigh down by falling demand in the developed economies, while financial services will see a sharp slowdown reflecting weak financial markets and credit growth, the ministry said, adding that the slowdown in these sectors will spread to the domestically-oriented segments of the economy, such as property, retail, and business services.
The ministry said that the weaker prognosis for the Singapore economy in 2009 is also based on the sharp contraction seen in the fourth quarter of 2008.
"Advance estimates show that gross domestic product (GDP) in the fourth quarter of 2008 contracted by 2.6 percent in real terms over the same period in 2007, following the decline of 0.3 percent in the preceding quarter. On a seasonally adjusted basis, real GDP fell by 12.5 percent, compared to a decline of 5.4 percent in the third quarter of 2008," the ministry said.
Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Wednesday in his annual New Year Message that the country's economy grew positive at 1.5 percent in 2008.
