Taylor Swift’s tour in Singapore makes economists raise GDP forecast – 03/09/2024 – Market

Economists have upgraded this year’s first-quarter growth forecasts for Singapore, with some attributing new gains in part to Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour.”

The country’s GDP is expected to expand 2.9% in the three months to March 31, the fastest pace in six quarters, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey.

Economists also raised their annual growth expectation to 2.5% from the previous 2.3% — toward the government’s upper forecast target of 1% to 3% for 2024.

The Singapore leg of the tour involved six shows until this Saturday (9), which benefited the hotel, food, beverage and retail sectors, according to DBS Bank economist Han Teng Chua.

“These benefits mainly came from increased spending by foreign tourists, with a large number of overseas fans attending the shows in Singapore,” said Chua, who estimates that the shows add between 300 million and 400 million Singapore dollars (between R$1.1 billion and R$1.5 billion), or 0.2 percentage points of GDP, to the city-state’s economy in the first quarter.

Still, the outlook remains fragile for the country’s trade-dependent economy amid high global interest rates, China’s slow recovery and persistent geopolitical risks.

“We expect renewed weakness in the first half as slower global growth limits Singapore’s export-oriented economic activity,” said Shivaan Tandon, economist at Capital Economics. “But growth should recover in a more sustainable way from the second half of the year.”