Asia: Singapore dollar hits 11-year low

Global Finance, Aug 2001 by Platt, Gordon

The Singapore dollar fell to an 11-year low of 1.84 to the US dollar last month as government figures confirmed that the downturn in the island nation's economy had met the technical definition of recession with two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

Gross domestic product fell at an annualized rate of 10.1% in the second quarter, after an 11.3% annualized plunge in the first quarter. This is bad news for the electronics dependent economies of Southeast Asia," says Anne Mills, research director at Brown Brothers Harriman in New York. Declining US and Japanese demand is hurting Asian countries that rely on export-led growth.

"Taiwan's exports registered another boneshattering drop in June, down 16.6%, year over year," she says.

-Gordon Platt