By Alvin Foo

SINGAPORE is likely to be the Asian economy that is worst affected by a United States recession, said economists. This is because it is one of the most open economies and has a large manufacturing sector.

They were commenting a day after the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - a private, non-profit research body - concluded that the US has been in recession since December last year.

Unusually, the NBER does not define a recession as two straight quarters of shrinking economic output. Instead, it looks for a decline in economic activity, spread across the economy, and lasting more than a few months. The figures it uses include overall economic output, industrial production, payroll employment, personal incomes, and wholesale and retail trade.

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