To warn of danger, miners used to bring caged canaries underground with them as the birds would die in the presence of even a small amount of poisonous gas - signalling to workers that they should make a swift exit. "And what it tells us is that it is a tough environment." "Singapore is the canary in the coal mine," Song Seng Wun, a regional economist with CIMB Private Banking, told AFP. Year-on-year growth came in at just 0.1 percent, the slowest pace since 2009 during the global financial crisis. That followed a shock 3.4 percent quarter-on-quarter contraction in GDP in the second quarter. In June exports collapsed 17.3 percent from a year earlier, the fastest decline in more than six years, led by a fall in shipments of computer chips. The affluent city-state is highly dependent on trade and has traditionally been one of the first places in Asia to be hit during global downturns - with ripples typically spreading out across the region. ![]() While it may be one of the smallest countries in the world, the export hub is highly sensitive to external shocks and has long been viewed as a barometer of the global demand for goods and services. A plunge in exports and the worst growth rates for a decade have fuelled concerns about the outlook for Singapore's economy, with analysts saying the figures offer a warning that Asia is heading for a slowdown as China-US tensions bite.
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