Singapore GDP vs national income: did terms of trade help or hurt in 2026?

Singapore’s real GDP grew 5.4% year on year in the third quarter of 2026, according to advance estimates (METI). In Korea the same quarter showed 3.4% GDP growth but 18.8% growth in real gross domestic income, because the prices Korea gets for chips rose much faster than the prices it pays for oil. Singapore cannot be measured in exactly the same way, and the closest substitutes do not show a gain of that kind.

The ministry that publishes the GDP releases, the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI), became the Ministry of Energy, Trade and Industry (METI) on 1 October 2026 (Prime Minister’s Office).

What is the difference between GDP and GDI or GNI?

GDP measures the volume of what an economy produces. Real gross domestic income (GDI) adds the trading gain or loss: the change in what that output can buy abroad when export prices and import prices move differently. Gross national income (GNI) then adds income received from abroad, such as dividends and interest, and subtracts what is paid to foreign owners.

A hypothetical example with illustrative numbers: suppose a batch of chips paid for 100 barrels of crude oil a year ago. If chip prices rise 10% and oil prices rise 50%, the same batch now pays for about 73 barrels (110 ÷ 150 × 100). Production volume, and so real GDP, has not changed, but the batch buys about 27% less oil. That shortfall is a trading loss. If chip prices had risen faster than oil, it would be a trading gain.

Singapore’s Department of Statistics (SingStat) publishes GNI at current prices once a year (SingStat M015031). It does not publish a quarterly real GDI or a trading gain line, so this note works with published price data instead.

What do Singapore’s latest numbers show?

Real GDP has grown more than 4% a year in each of the last five quarters, while nominal output and income have swung much more widely.

Singapore real GDP growth, year on year, third quarter of 2026 (advance estimate, METI, 14 October 2026). Nominal GDP and income for the quarter are due in November

Visual guide

What do Singapore’s latest numbers show?

Real GDP

• 3Q 20254.5%
• 4Q 20255.7%
• 1Q 20266.4%
• 2Q 20266.2%
• 3Q 20265.4% (advance)

06.4

Quarter	Real GDP	Nominal GDP	Nominal GNI (CapsWindow calculation)
3Q 2025	4.5%	0.7%	−1.1%
4Q 2025	5.7%	3.2%	6.0%
1Q 2026	6.4%	7.8%	8.4%
2Q 2026	6.2%	12.4%	11.0%
3Q 2026	5.4% (advance)	due November	due November

All figures are year-on-year changes. Real GDP is from the 14 October release. Nominal GDP is from SingStat data updated on 11 August (M014871). Nominal GNI here is nominal GDP plus the primary income balance from the balance of payments (M060171); it is CapsWindow’s calculation, not an official quarterly series.

The gap between the real and nominal columns is prices. In the third quarter of 2025 the GDP deflator was 3.7% lower than a year earlier, so nominal output barely grew. By the second quarter of 2026 the deflator was up 6.1% (SingStat M015111). A rising GDP deflator is not by itself a terms-of-trade gain, because it also reflects prices at home.

Did Singapore gain or lose from terms of trade in 2026?

On merchandise trade, Singapore lost a little in 2026 as oil prices spiked, and the loss had nearly closed by August. The table divides SingStat’s export price index by its import price index (export, import, both 2023 = 100).

2026	Export prices	Import prices	Export ÷ import prices	Fuel export prices	Fuel import prices
January	−6.0%	−4.0%	−2.1%	−18.2%	−16.9%
February	−4.2%	−1.3%	−3.0%	−13.8%	−11.0%
March	+8.7%	+17.1%	−7.2%	+44.5%	+65.9%
April	+13.3%	+18.9%	−4.8%	+67.1%	+75.1%
June	+12.6%	+13.1%	−0.4%	+39.7%	+45.1%
August	+15.2%	+15.6%	−0.3%	+51.6%	+56.6%

Changes are year on year. The ratio column is a CapsWindow calculation. Fuel means SingStat’s mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials section.

March shows the oil shock most clearly. Singapore imports crude and also exports refined products, so when oil prices rise, both sides of its trade get more expensive. In March import fuel prices rose 65.9% and export fuel prices 44.5%, and the overall ratio dropped 7.2%. By August the two were moving almost together. In machinery and transport equipment, the section that includes electronics, export prices rose 4.6% in the second quarter against 3.8% for imports in the same section (export, import; CapsWindow calculation).

The national accounts give a second, broader measure. The deflator for exports of goods and services divided by the deflator for imports rose 0.5% year on year in the first quarter of 2026 and 0.9% in the second (M015111; CapsWindow calculation). This measure includes services and uses different weights, which is why it can point the other way from the merchandise price indices.

So the two substitutes disagree in sign, and neither shows a windfall. Exports of goods and services were about twice the size of GDP in the second quarter (S$430.3 billion against S$216.3 billion, M014871), which is one reason small differences between price measures matter and why neither should be read as an exact trading gain.

How does Singapore compare with Korea and Taiwan?

Korea is the clearest example of a chip exporter gaining from terms of trade in 2026, and Singapore does not show the same pattern.

	Korea	Singapore
Real GDP growth, 3Q 2026	3.4%	5.4% (advance)
Real GDI growth, 3Q 2026	18.8%	not published
Trading gain or loss	+77.5 trillion won in 3Q 2026, from −10.9 trillion won a year earlier	no official figure; export ÷ import prices −0.3% (August), trade deflator ratio +0.9% (2Q)
IMF 2026 growth forecast (October 2026)	3.3%	5.0%

Korea figures are from the Bank of Korea (ECOS, table 200Y106) as reported on 27 October (Kyunghyang Shinmun). Korea’s 18.8% was its fastest real GDI growth since the fourth quarter of 1977. IMF forecasts are from the October 2026 World Economic Outlook (IMF). Note that the Singapore price measures cover different months from the Korea quarter.

Taiwan, also a large chip exporter, has the highest IMF growth forecast for 2026 among the economies CapsWindow covers, at 10.7%. Its income figures are not covered in this note. Oil importers without large chip exports sit on the other side of the ledger.

Singapore sits between the two groups. It exports electronics, but it is also a refining and oil-trading hub, so higher oil prices raise both its export and import bills. On the published numbers, Singapore’s 2026 growth shows up mainly in output volume rather than in a better price ratio.

Where did the extra income go?

Business earnings grew much faster than pay, and more income left the country. The figures below are second-quarter 2026 changes from a year earlier, calculated by CapsWindow from SingStat levels.

Item	Change, 2Q 2026	Source
Compensation of employees (nominal)	+5.4%	M015961
Gross operating surplus (nominal)	+15.5%	M015961
Net primary income paid abroad	+18.2% (S$37.9 billion to S$44.8 billion)	M060171
Private consumption (real)	+3.5%	M014811

Gross operating surplus is mostly company earnings, including those of foreign-owned firms. Much of what those firms earn is paid out to their owners abroad, which is why Singapore’s GNI is well below its GDP. In 2025 net income paid abroad was S$133.4 billion, so GNI of S$656.1 billion was 83.1% of GDP of S$789.5 billion (SingStat M015031; the ratio is a CapsWindow calculation).

Household spending grew 3.5% in real terms, slower than GDP. These movements happened together; the data do not show how much of the extra operating surplus went to foreign owners in particular.

To see how a Singapore dollar amount from an earlier year compares with today, try the past money calculator.

Compare Singapore dollar values across years →

What are the limits of these numbers?