By: Leong Sze Hian
I refer to the article “Singapore is only Asian economy to suffer contraction in nominal GDP in Q2: BNP Paribas” (Straits Times, September 27).
It states that “Unlike real GDP, nominal GDP is economic output at current prices without adjusting for inflation.”
Deflation – Nominal GDP matters more?
This may arguably be rather alarming, since we are in a deflationary cycle and what really matters to Singapore and in terms of what we earn and spend is the nominal GDP.
Despite liberal foreign labour & immigration policies?
What may be interesting to note is that the above is despite our continuing liberal foreign labour policies (employment change of only 500 local jobs against 49,000 foreign jobs in the last 18 months), and immigration policies (20,815 new citizens against 13,085 Singaporeans last year).