国际英语新闻：Singapore needs to make structural changes for economic recovery: official

SINGAPORE, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- Singapore must go on to implement structural changes so as to bring about economic recovery, a senior Singaporean official said on Wednesday.

    According to local TV broadcaster Channel News Asia, Singapore's National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) Secretary-General Lim Swee Say said that Singapore has done well under the first phase of the economy recovery campaign, but there is still more work to be done.     

    He said that it is too early to declare success because anything can happen in the fourth quarter, adding that sustainable economic recovery requires structural change in various economies.     

    "We are fully aware that this world is not going to get out of this global recession in a sustainable manner unless the individual economies, collectively as a global economy, make the structural change," Lim was quoted as saying in the report.

    The NTUC chief said in the next phase of upturning the downturn, the government will be working closely with companies to enhance their productivity, and continue to upgrade the skills of workers so that they could better respond to changing economic conditions.     

    Singapore's gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by 6.5 percent in the first half of the year. The government estimated that the economic growth forecast for 2009 will be between minus 6.0 to minus 4.0 percent.