Singapore Topples Into Recession; Reports GDP For Q2 At -41.2%

As the coronavirus cast a deep impact on the country's business, Singapore has toppled into recession, entering into the worst ever slump this year. The first city state to report GDP numbers among Asian nations for the second quarter that shows a record contraction of 41.2% underscore the grave fall-out of the global economy due to the pandemic.

Singapore Topples Into Recession; Reports GDP For Q2 At -41.2%

This result is grim than the Reuters poll wherein analyst forecast a better figure of 37.4% decline.

In fact the sectoral impact was far reaching with hardest impact over the construction and services sector which ground to a near halt, plummeted 95.6% on a quarter-on-quarter annualised seasonally-adjusted basis. "We were expecting these numbers to look quite dismal, although this is worse than what we had expected," said Steve Cochrane, economist at Moody's Analytics.

On a yearly basis too GDP dived by a 12.6% versus the forecast of 10.5% decline. However, the manufacturing sector witnessed growth of 2.5% in comparison to the year-ago period primarily on increase in output in biomedical sector.

This is the second quarter of decline for the global finance hub. This was highly expected as most workplaces remained shut between April and June to curb virus spread.

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