BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- Brunei's economy posted a negative growth of 2.8 percent year-on-year at constant prices to 4326.9 million Brunei dollars (3151.9 million U.S. dollars) in the second quarter of 2018, dragged by slowing oil and gas production.
According to the latest statistics released by the country's Department of Economic Planning and Development at the Ministry of Finance and Economy on Tuesday, Brunei's Gross Domestic Product(GDP) turned to negative performance, after posting positive growth for four consecutive quarters since the second quarter of 2017.
"The abrupt contraction of local economy in the second quarter is surprising because it breaks the one-year growth cycle," a senior official of Brunei Association of Banks told Xinhua.
"However, it might not undermine the economic prospect for the whole year, which has been boosted by the rising oil and gas prices."
In the second quarter of 2018, the oil and gas sector declined by 2.6 percent at constant prices year-on-year. The decline was mainly associated with the decrease of the manufacture of liquefied natural gas and methanol by 3.5 percent and oil and gas mining by 2.3 percent. This sector's contribution to the total Gross Value Added was about 60.7 percent in the second quarter of 2018.
The non-oil and gas sector declined by 3.0 percent in the same period, which was contributed by the negative growth of finance (37.0 percent), the
production of vegetables, fruits and other agriculture (16.8 percent) and fishery (11.8 percent).
As for activities of different economic sectors, Brunei experienced contraction in three main sectors in the second quarter of 2018, namely the agriculture, forestry and fishery sector, the industrial sector and the service sector, declining by 5.7 percent, two percent and four percent respectively.
