6 Wednesday 15 July 2009 ●

THE NEW PAPER

Local
DON’T FLAG IT: Hypermarket chain Carrefour received
complaints for hanging up flags resembling those flown by
the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II at the atrium
of Plaza Singapura as an advertisement for a promotion.
Carrefour has apologised and said it will remove the flags.

News
watch
Tourist numbers on target
DESPITE the recession and the
H1N1 flu outbreak, the Singapore
Tourism Board (STB) remains confi-
dent of achieving its target of hav-
ing 9 million to 9.5 million tourists
to Singapore this year.
May marked the 12th consecutive month of flag-
ging tourism arrivals, with the number of visitors
down by 13 per cent to 730,000 from a year ago.
Now that the worst of H1N1 is over, STB’s chief
executive Aw Kah Peng said yesterday she is “reason-
PICTURE: LIANHE WANBAO ably confident” that visitor arrival rates will stay in
the original forecast range.
She was speaking to reporters at a breakfast
Q2 GDP shoots up 20% Quarter-on-quarter growth briefing on this year’s Singapore Experience
Awards.
20.4*

Growth CDCs: Fewer people asking

for employment, social aid
forecast -7.7
-2.1 COMMUNITY Development Coun-
cils (CDCs) are seeing a drop in the
number of people seeking jobs and

revised Q2
-16.4 -14.6
Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2
*Prelim.
social assistance, reported Channel
NewsAsia.
Among Singapore’s five CDCs,
North East CDC has shown the highest fall in the

T
HE Government raised its 2009 growth fore-
cast after a less severe economic slump in the
first half of the year.
The Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) yester-
day announced that it expects the economy to
contract by 4 to 6 per cent instead of 6 to 9 per cent
earlier predicted in April.
MTI said the more upbeat forecast “reflects the
less severe contraction in the first half of the year,
while the underlying economic conditions remain
weak.”
Flash estimates for the second quarter, which are
largely based on April and May numbers, showed
that the economy surged 20.4 per cent compared
with the first quarter.
However, it is still down 3.7 per cent relative to
the same period last year.
CALVIN AND HOBBES BILL WATTERSON
2008 2009 result
SOURCE: MTI/ AFP
The brighter data means that Singapore is also
the first Asian country out of a technical recession.
A technical recession is at least two straight
quarters of negative real gross domestic product
(GDP), in which growth in one quarter is lower than
the previous quarter’s growth.
MTI said its new forecast reflected an upward
revision in first-quarter performance, a spike in
biomedical manufacturing output leading to im-
proved second-quarter performance, and a sub-
dued outlook for the rest of the year.
Manufacturing fell 1.5 per cent from a year ago
compared to a 24 per cent contraction in the first
quarter. Construction rose 18 per cent in the second
quarter while services dropped 5.1 per cent.
SINGAPORE
WEATHER
■ Thunderstorms
■ High 32˚
■ Low 24˚
number of people seeking job assistance with a 25
per cent drop in job seekers, compared to the
previous month. The number of people asking for
social assistance also dipped slightly – from 497 in
May to 474 in June.
But Mr Teo Ser Luck, mayor of North East CDC,
said: “The unemployment rates are still very high
and Singapore, being an export-dependent country,
is very much dependent on the US market which is
looking at a contraction of 2.6 per cent this year.”
MOE cancels Brookes
Business School licence
THE Ministry of Education (MOE)
has cancelled the registration of
Brookes Business School, which
was found to have peddled fake
degrees from a well-known
Australian university.
The move came into immediate effect yesterday,
said MOE in a statement. MOE said all affected
students may approach the Association of Private
Schools and Colleges (APSC) to be placed in
another private education institution.
Students may call APSC at 6252 3192 or
6252 6134. They may also contact pro-tem CPE at
MOE_CPE_Contact@moe.gov.sg or 6872 2220 for
clarifications.