Singapore : 2016 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Singapore

Singapore's economy continues to perform well, although growth has slowed reflecting a combination of structural and cyclical factors: population aging, restrictions on foreign worker inflows, and slow productivity growth, and a difficult external environment, including the trade growth deceleration and the negative impact on domestic manufacturing of lower oil prices. Disinflation in domestic goods and asset markets and deleveraging continue. Risks to the outlook are skewed to the downside, including from slow global and regional growth and spillovers from renewed global financial volatility. Domestic risks are rooted in still elevated household and corporate leverage and slower-than-expected gains in productivity during the transition to an innovation-based, labor-lean growth model.