GDP Estimates

Supply, Use and Input-Output Tables (SU-IOTs)

Consumer Price Index

Producer Price Index

What is balance of payments (BOP)?

Singapore's BOP is a statement that summarises the economic transactions between Singapore residents and non-residents. These transactions occur during a specific time period. It consists of the current account, and the capital and financial account.

What is external debt?

Singapore's external debt is the outstanding amount of actual current, and not contingent liabilities owed to non-residents by Singapore residents. The values reflected are as at a point in time. It is also part of external liabilities in Singapore's international investment position (IIP).

What is international investment position (IIP)?

Singapore's IIP is a statement that shows the value and composition of cross-border financial assets and liabilities of Singapore at a point in time. Financial assets and liabilities comprise mainly three broad categories (1) equity and investment fund shares, (2) debt instruments, and (3) other financial assets and liabilities such as financial derivatives.

The difference between Singapore's external financial assets and liabilities is Singapore's net IIP, which may be positive or negative. A positive net IIP would mean that an economy is a net creditor to the rest of the world while a negative net IIP would indicate that an economy is a net debtor to the rest of the world.

What makes up the household sector in the Household Sector Balance Sheet?

Household sector in the Household Sector Balance Sheet refers to all household institutional units that have engaged in economic activities in Singapore for at least a year, including:

• Singapore citizens
• Permanent residents
• Foreigners
• Unincorporated enterprises (e.g., sole proprietorships)

Data on the household sector balance sheet are compiled on an aggregated basis from a macro perspective. Hence, data on mean/median household wealth, assets and liabilities, by household and socio-demographic characteristics and by income or wealth deciles are not available.

What are growth cycles and the Composite Leading Index?

In the business cycle literature, there are three types of cycles, namely: the classical cycle, growth cycle and growth rate cycle. Singapore’s economic activity is characterised by growth cycles, rather than classical cycles or growth rate cycles as it has generally been on an upward trend with relatively stable growths. Growth cycles are fluctuations in the growth rate of an economy. Since the 1985 recession, six growth cycles have been identified for the Singapore economy. The dates of peak and trough are identified from the growth cycles via statistical algorithms.

The Composite Leading Index (CLI) is a predictive tool to anticipate upturns and downturns in the economy and to gauge if, and approximately when, an expansion or recession will take place. Singapore’s CLI comprises nine economic indicators that exhibit leading relationships with the growth cycles of the economy. These leading indicators have been selected based on a set of key criteria including economic significance, cyclical properties, timeliness, periodicity, and statistical quality of the data series.

For more information, you may refer to the information paper on Singapore’s Growth Cycle Chronology, Coincident and Leading Indicators. For latest updates to the growth cycle chronology, please refer to the Statistics Singapore Newsletter Issue 2, 2023 article. (792 KB)

What is personal saving and how does it differ from bank savings?

Personal saving in national accounts refers to the difference between personal disposable income and private consumption expenditure on goods and services. It differs from the common perception of bank savings, which often refers to the amount of deposits in bank accounts. Instead, personal saving is the amount of available funds after consumption and before the purchase of assets or repayment of debts.

Personal disposable income measures the income of the personal sector (e.g., compensation of employees, self-employment income, gross operating surplus on ownership of dwellings and private non-profit institutions), after accounting for net property income received (i.e., interests and dividends), net current transfers received and personal income tax paid.

Why is there a huge difference in Economic Development Board (EDB)’s data on Principal Statistics of Manufacturing by Industry Cluster – Employment and Ministry of Manpower (MOM)’s data on Annual Employment Level – Manufacturing? Which one should I use?

EDB’s employment data are compiled from their Annual Census of Manufacturing survey (CMA). The CMA gathers data on the entire industrial sector with establishments engaging in activities of manufacturing and industrial servicing. These activities are classified in Section C of the Singapore Standard Industrial Classification (SSIC) 2020 edition. EDB's data are survey based and based on a representative sample of manufacturing establishments, i.e., not all manufacturing firms in Singapore are covered. Firms with more than 20 workers are surveyed with certainty while firms with lesser than 20 workers are sampled. More information on CMA are available at Report Census of Manufacturing Activities.

For policy decision making purposes, it is more appropriate to use employment data from administrative sources i.e., MOM, as they are the official source for manpower statistics. For clarifications on the CMA results, you may contact EDB at rsu@edb.gov.sg.

MOM’s data on number of workers employed in the manufacturing sector are compiled primarily from administrative records, with the self-employed component estimated from the Labour Force Survey. The employment data are as of year-end, i.e. end-December of each year. More information on the source and coverage are available on MOM’s Website. For clarifications, you can contact MOM at mom_rsd@mom.gov.sg.

What is seasonal adjustment, and the significance of seasonally adjusted (SA) data in time series analysis?

Seasonal adjustment is the process of estimating and removing the calendar and seasonal effects from a time series so as to show its underlying trend and short-term movements clearly. The seasonally adjusted time series facilitate a better assessment of their recent movements, including the timely identification of turning points.

Our Department adopts the X12-ARIMA procedure in carrying out seasonal adjustments, which is developed by the US Census Bureau and widely used among national statistical offices and international agencies.

The procedure works on a basis of iterative estimations, alternately estimating the trend-cycle and seasonal components using various moving-average filters, before finally deriving the estimates of the seasonally adjusted series.

The non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) data show the actual economic events that have occurred, while the seasonally adjusted (SA) data represents an analytical elaboration of the data designed to show the underlying movements that may be hidden by the seasonal variation. SA series is especially useful during instances where the NSA series contains strong seasonal patterns which may hinder detailed in-depth data analysis. SA data facilitates analysis by supplementing the information presented by the NSA data.

It is possible that the non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) data shows an increase over the previous month but the seasonally adjusted (SA) data shows a decrease, when the increase is less than the usual seasonal increase. To illustrate, consider the retail sales index (RSI) which tends to increase sharply in December during the festive season. Suppose that an economic downturn results in a weak performance of the retail sector, the unadjusted RSI for December might still show a moderate increase over November. But because this increase is lower than that for a typical December, the seasonally adjusted RSI for December would be lower than the corresponding seasonally adjusted RSI for November.

For more information on seasonal adjustments of time series, you may refer to the Information Paper on Seasonal Adjustment of Economic Time Series. (254 KB) You could also refer to the article on Seasonal Adjustments of Time Series (31 KB) .

Does the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) capture unpaid work such as volunteering?

GDP measures the market value of the goods and services produced in an economy. In line with international statistical standards outlined in the System of National Accounts, GDP does not include unpaid work such as volunteer work. Economies, including Singapore, follow these standards when computing GDP to ensure the international comparability of estimates.

Nonetheless, the value of volunteer work may be monitored through indicators beyond GDP, such as volunteering rates, hours volunteered, which are published by the National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre.

Why are recent-period GDP estimates revised?

Quarterly GDP estimates of year T are initially compiled using a wide range of timely short-term indicators of economic activities in each industry. These estimates offer a snapshot of the current economic situation for macroeconomic policymakers & analysts and comes prior to the availability of comprehensive annual survey benchmarks. Sources of these indicators used include high frequency administrative data and short-term survey data obtained from a relatively small number of companies or establishments.

As more comprehensive data on the full quarter’s performance become available, these are incorporated in subsequent updates, ensuring that the estimates reflect the most accurate and up to date picture of economic activity.

Why are there revisions to GDP estimates of earlier years?

A comprehensive review of the GDP estimates, initially compiled from timely short-term indicators, occurs in year T+1 during the annual Economic Survey (ESS) exercise, incorporating comprehensive annual survey benchmarks and up-to-date administrative data.

Survey benchmarks are a comprehensive set of data compiled from aggregated establishment survey returns, typically available with a time lag of one to two years. Consequently, larger revisions are generally observed for recent-period data. Revisions also occur as GDP estimates by the three approaches (i.e., production, expenditure & income) are rebalanced and reconciled based on the updated annual supply and use tables.

This is elaborated in the table below.

Table 1. GDP revision process across annual ESS publications