RPT-Singapore PM says 5 pct growth a stretch-report

SINGAPORE, Jan 26 - Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the economy will struggle to achieve 5 percent average annual growth over the next decade because it has become more developed, a local newspaper reported on Tuesday.

"There will be good years when we should go faster. There will be other years which are tough, where we will do more poorly," the Straits Times newspaper quoted Lee as telling a seminar on Monday.

"But overall, if you take it over the next decade, I think 5 percent will be a stretch."

The government expects growth this year of between 3 percent to 5 percent, compared with an estimated contraction of 2.1 percent in 2009, preliminary gross domestic product data showed earlier this month. [ID: nSGE603008]

The government is due to unveil its 2010/11 budget in parliament on Feb. 22, which will include a new strategy to respond to double the country's productivity to 2-3 percent a year from the present 1 percent, the daily reported.

"Then, even if our total gross domestic product grows more slowly, our workers can become more productive and our income per capita can continue to rise," Lee told the seminar.