See: Trade protectionism, China economy seen as increasingly risky to Singapore's GDP growth
In a Wednesday report, MAS also notes that a growing number of respondents flagged slower growth in China as a downside risk, on the back of tightening credit conditions. Faster-than-expected US interest rate hikes also remains a key concern as they could trigger financial market turbulence.
Following the Singapore economy’s 3Q expansion of 2.2%, which comes in marginally higher than the median forecast of 2.1% reported in the Sept survey, y-o-y growth in 4Q18 is now expected to come in at 2.4%.
Respondents are expecting GDP growth for the full year of 2018 to come in at 3.3%, which is up slightly from 3.2% in the previous survey.
Based on the mean probability distribution, MAS says the most likely outcome is for Singapore’s economy to grow by between 3-3.4% in 2018, which is unchanged from the previous survey.
Respondents overall assigned a 65.6% probability this range, significantly up from 39.2% in the Sept survey, alongside a decrease in the average probabilities assigned to all other ranges.
Looking ahead, respondents are expecting GDP growth to ease to 2.6% in 2019 as a whole, which is slightly lower than the 2.7% growth projection in the previous survey.
On average, the growth outcome for Singapore’s economy is most likely to fall within the range of 2.5%-2.9% next year, unchanged from the previous survey, says MAS.
The forecast for MAS core inflation in 2018, as well as expectations of the unemployment rate to be at 2.1% by the end of the year, remain unchanged at 1.7% and 2.1%, respectively.
