Professional forecasters lower Singapore's GDP growth forecast for 2020 again

SINGAPORE, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- Economists and analysts polled in the survey of professional forecasters expected Singapore's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to decline by 6 percent in 2020, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced in a report Monday.

This is the third time for the respondents to downgrade the whole-year forecast within this year. In the survey reports that the MAS released in March and in June, they revised downward Singapore's estimated GDP growth for 2020 from 1.5 percent to 0.6 percent and from 0.6 percent to -5.8 percent, respectively.

In the current survey, the respondents expected the economy to contract by 7.6 percent year on year in the third quarter of 2020, and to contract by 3.7 percent in the fourth quarter.

As for inflation, they forecast that Singapore's Consumer Price Index for all items (CPI-All Items) would fall 0.4 percent in 2020, and the MAS core inflation, which excludes the costs of accommodation and private road transport, would come in at -0.3 percent.

The economists and analysts forecast that Singapore's GDP growth would recover to 5.5 percent for the whole year of 2021, when the CPI-All Items inflation and the MAS core inflation are forecast to both come in at 0.7 percent.

According to the report, an escalation in the COVID-19 situation continues topping the list of downside risks to Singapore's growth outlook identified by respondents, with 90 percent of respondents citing it and 75 percent ranking it as the top downside risk.

Other major downside risks identified by the economists and analysts included an escalation in China-U.S. tensions and the external slowdown. Meanwhile, the containment of the COVID-19 outbreak is the most commonly-cited upside risk to Singapore's growth outlook, due for instance to the successful global deployment of a vaccine.

The MAS said this month's survey report reflected the views received from 26 respondents and did not represent MAS' views or forecasts.