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Brunei's economy continues to be strong
Real estate news By Azlan Othman
Oct 13, 2007
Brunei's economic outlook is expected to continue to be resilient for the whole of 2007, despite the uncertainty in the oil and gas sector, the Department of Economic Planning and Development (JPKE) reported yesterday. Economic growth will be driven by the non-oil and gas sector. The higher average of oil and gas prices in first and second quarter 2007, compared to the same period last year, would continue to maintain the government's revenue and fiscal surplus balance as well as the overall trade balance surplus with moderate inflation rate, the report said.
The services sector will continue to support this growth, whilst construction and manufacturing are expected to bounce back following the expected increase in the number of tenders awarded for government's projects and the construction of the multi-million methanol plant at Sungai Liang Industrial Park. JPKE revealed that Brunei's economy grew by 0.3% in the second quarter of 2007 after experiencing a negative growth of 3.6% in first quarter 2007. This represents an improvement of 3.9 percentage points. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at current prices of second quarter of 2007 was estimated at $4.4 billion. In first quarter 2007, the GDP was $3.9 billion while in second quarter of 2006, the GDP was $4.5 billion.
The non-oil and gas sector, comprising of both the private non-oil and gas and the government, showed commendable performance. In Q2 2007, the private non-oil and gas sector grew by 11.8% fuelled by strong growth in the services sectors that include private services (12.4%), trade (20%), transport and communication (14.6%), finance (10.6%) and real estate & ownership of dwellings (2.3%). However, the oil and gas sector continued to decline at 9.1%.
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