Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Sunday said that the storm of the global economic downturn had passed the city-state - but the outlook beyond the third quarter 2009 was still uncertain, according to dpa. "We are looking ahead cautiously towards the rest of the year," Lee said in his national day rally speech, marking the 50th anniversary of Singapore's self-government and the 44th anniversary of its independence. "The third quarter should be alright, beyond that the outlook is still not so clear," Lee added. In the first half of 2009, Singapore's gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 6.5 per cent compared to a year ago, as the export-reliant city-state struggled to pull out of its worst recession in more than four decades. For the whole of 2009, the government expected GDP to shrink between 4 and 6 per cent. Singapore's economy showed signs of a rebound in the second quarter with GDP soaring by 20.7 per cent over the previous quarter. But the government warned that any sustained recovery was uncertain without a turnaround in demand in the city-state's major export markets like the United States and Europe. "Now the eye of the storm has passed," Lee said in his speech, noting that the global situation was stabilizing. "We are quite confident that we can overcome this current economic challenge," he said.
