Singapore economy in recession

SINGAPORE, October 10, 2008 (AFP) - Singapore's trade-sensitive economy has declined for a second straight quarter, the government said Friday, meaning the city-state has entered a recession for the first time in six years.







On a seasonally adjusted quarter-on-quarter annualised basis, real GDP declined by 6.3 percent in the third quarter after contracting 5.







7 percent in the previous quarter, estimates from the Ministry of Trade and Industry said.

It did not describe the economy as being in recession, but a technical recession is generally defined as two consecutive quarters of quarter-on-quarter contractions in economic output.

Economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast a 0.

3 percent quarter-on-quarter rise in gross domestic product (GDP), the value of goods and services produced in the economy.

Singapore's last technical recession occurred in 2002, and the most recent full-scale recession was in 2001 when the economy contracted 2.4 percent during the year.