Asia Economic Diary:May 23-27

　　A number of economic releases ranging from GDP, trade, CPI, and industrialproduction are in the pipeline in the coming week. Singapore’s GDP will likelyprint a modest upward revision in the Q1 GDP advance estimate (1.9% vs.

　　1.8%) as momentum picked up in March. The advance GDP estimate onlyrefers to January and February indicators, but more recent releases includingthose for March continue to paint a gloomy picture for the Singaporeeconomy. Industrial production and manufacturing PMI remained incontractionary territory, although the pace of decline eased in March from theprevious month. With a bigger weight assumed by IP in our aggregatemomentum indicator, the slight improvement in factory output is now pointingto risks of a modest upward revision in Q1 GDP. However, we do not think thischange would bring a considerable turnaround in Singapore’s outlook.Meanwhile, we expect CPI inflation to remain in negative territory (-0.5%yoy inApril vs. -1.0%yoy in March) while IP likely fell at a faster pace of 1.4% from0.5% in the same period.

　　April’s CPI inflation print for Hong Kong likely rose to 3.2% in April from 2.9%in March while exports continued to contract, albeit at a slower pace of 1.5%from 7.0% earlier. With imports also falling at a slower pace of 2.0%yoy (vs. -5.8%); the trade deficit likely lowered to HKD36.9bn in April from HKD47.0bnin March. We expect Thailand’s trade balance to register a surplus ofUSD0.6bn in April from USD3.0bn in March as exports rose only 0.6% (vs.1.3%) in the same period.