Up, up and away, I was tempted to sing when the BBC World Service reported today that the Singapore economy was bouncing back, soaring more than 20 percent between April and June – up for the first time in a year.
But the economic downturn isn't over yet, warned the government. It merely expects the recession to be milder than feared.
That made this 1967 Fifth Dimension hit particularly apt. Just listen to the song.
Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon
Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon
We could float among the stars together, you and I
For we can fly we can fly
Up, up and away.
But then balloons burst, don't they?
Worse, this song was turned into an advertising jingle by TWA, an airline that's gone the way of the dodo.
Still, it's beautiful, like my beautiful Singapore.
Now back to the news.
Singapore appears to be emerging from its worst recession on record after the economy expanded at an annualised rate of 20.4% between April and June, reported the BBC.
It was the first quarterly expansion in a year, lifted by increased drug sales and construction activity, said the Ministry of Trade and Industry.
However, the government still expects the economy to contract for the year.
The government now predicts the economy will decline between 4% and 6% for 2009 as a whole, less than its earlier estimate of a contraction of between 6% and 9%.
The Wall Street Journal adds:
A rebound in the pharmaceutical sector, which makes up 5% of Singapore's GDP, accounted for most of the bounce in manufacturing in the period. The government cautioned that growth in this sector, which is volatile because of the unpredictable production schedules of Singapore-based manufacturing plants for Western pharmaceutical companies, may not last.
The effects of a massive government stimulus package announced earlier this year had yet to fully seep through to the local economy in the second quarter, the data indicated. Service industries slumped 5.1% compared with a year earlier, with the property market and financial sectors still weak, the same rate of decline as in the first quarter.
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