Economist, Centennial Asia Advisors

Nigel Chiang

Centennial Asia Advisors deliver timely and accurate economic and political analysis to investors, focused on anticipating key turning points that affect the client’s interests in the Asia-Pacific region. Clients include public agencies and central banks, as well as fund managers and investment banks. The company draws strength from its flexibility to tailor products to fit client’s specific interests. It provides detailed macro-economic forecasts, scenario analysis and timely assessments of how specific major economic and political developments may affect a client’s areas of interest. At Centennial Asia Advisors, we tell it like it is. We have no vested interests, no need for a China wall, and no reason to skew our outlook any other way.

Economist

Singapore: Rising Confidence in Growth but No Hawkish Turn in Policy Yet

Singapore: Unusual Hints of a Major Shift in Policy

Singapore's Post-Pandemic Economic Strategy Does Not Go Far Enough

Singapore: Trade-Led Upturn to Accelerate

Singapore: Further Scope For Growth Surprises

Centennial Asia Advisors

At Centennial Asia Advisors, we tell it like it is. We have no vested interests, no need for a China wall, and no reason to skew our outlook any other way. With over 30 years experience covering Asia’s political economy, you can be sure our conclusions and analyses are based on the unadulterated facts. Through years of fine-tuning our research methodologies, we deliver a quality of macroeconomic analysis few other houses can match.

Centennial Asia Advisors is an independent research and advisory firm that works with governments, multilateral institutions, financial firms and leading MNCs.

Economic Policy and Strategic Advisors

Macroeconomics

The release of the first quarter’s GDP growth figures is an appropriate juncture to revisit our growth forecasts and assumptions. We emerge with the following takeaways:<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>First, the surge in manufacturing in the first quarter is unlikely to be sustained heading into 2Q21, if the activity indicators we track are anything to go by: non-oil domestic exports in April suggest a sequential decrease, as does non-oil retained imports of intermediate goods (NORI), a good lead indicator for industrial output. That said, we expect output levels to remain robust on global demand tailwinds, with sequential gains seen in the back half of 2020.</li>
<li>Second, we had been a tad too optimistic on our expectations for the service sector’s performance in 2021, with sequential growth (which gives us a sense of the underlying momentum in the economy) across most sub-sectors in 1Q21 looking quite humdrum.</li>
<li>Incorporating our updated sectoral growth assumptions, we lower our full-year GDP growth forecast to +7.2%, down from +7.8% previously.</li>
</ul>

The release of the first quarter’s GDP growth figures is an appropriate juncture to revisit our growth forecasts and assumptions. We emerge with the following takeaways:
First, the surge in manufacturing in the first quarter is unlikely to be sustained heading into 2Q21, if the activity indicators we track are anything to go by: non-oil domestic exports in April suggest a sequential decrease, as does non-oil retained imports of intermediate goods (NORI), a good lead indicator for industrial output. That said, we expect output levels to remain robust on global demand tailwinds, with sequential gains seen in the back half of 2020.
Second, we had been a tad too optimistic on our expectations for the service sector’s performance in 2021, with sequential growth (which gives us a sense of the underlying momentum in the economy) across most sub-sectors in 1Q21 looking quite humdrum.
Incorporating our updated sectoral growth assumptions, we lower our full-year GDP growth forecast to +7.2%, down from +7.8% previously.


Singapore: Revisiting Our Growth Forecasts and Assumptions