Singapore may see 2 years of sub-par growth: Tharman

Singapore is likely to experience “sub-par” growth in the next two years due to problems in the global economy, Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said on Tuesday, according to local news reports.

“It may not be a slowdown for just one year,” Channel NewsAsia quoted Tharman as saying. “My sense is that this is going to be an environment of slow growth for some time, for at least two years I would say we’ll see sub-par growth.”

Singapore’s trade-driven economy contracted in the last three months of 2011, and the government is projecting economic growth of just 1-3% this year, down from last year’s 4.8%.