http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/685c3d90-c...44feabdc0.html
Downturn could spread from Singapore’s ships to shore
By Kevin Brown and Paul Betts
Published: November 5 2009 19:07 | Last updated: November 5 2009 19:07
Anyone wondering why Singapore has remained calm
and prosperous while its economy gyrates wildly should raise their eyes
from the streets and look offshore.
Singapore has suffered its worst recession since it gained independence
in 1965. The economy contracted by 10 percentage points in the four
quarters to March, but has recovered most of that in the six months to
September. Packed
bars and heaving restaurants appeared to give the lie to the numbers,
even after allowing for a fiscal stimulus amounting to about 6 per cent
of GDP. Offshore though, hundreds of ships lie at anchor, some of them
part of the estimated 10 per cent of the world container fleet idled
due to lack of business.
The number of containers going through Singapore’s port is down about
15 per cent this year, which will be hurting hauliers and brokers as
well as shipping lines.
Now half the banks that used to
provide finance for shipping companies have pulled out of the market.
It could get worse: hundreds of new ships are on order, many
unfinanced. That could help push the proportion of idle box ships as
high as 20 per cent next year.
No wonder, then, that the trend rate of growth in the city state is
likely to shift downwards to somewhere below 5 per cent over the next
decade, as Tharman Shanmugaratnam, finance minister, told the Financial
Times the other day.
- singapore news alternative
Quite true. Recently I come back from a tour and when going to land on Changi Airport. Saw huge fleet of commercial ships anchor just at coast area. Never before saw so many ships anchor outside Singapore coast.
I think Gov banking on technology sector for the future of Sg prove to be a fatal blow in the early 2000. It so far yield no result and the concentration of making Sg becoming a R&D centre create little job opportunity.
We even need 3rd world countries method of using Tourism to boast our economy growth. Terrible!