Orchard Road, Singapore - - the city state's principal shopping street.

Singapore reported today that the economy grew by a stunning 18.1% in the first half of this year, compared with the same period in 2009. The government responded with caution about the full year's economy performance and urged structural reforms to put the economy on a path of sustainable growth.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) announced today that it expects the Singapore economy to expand by 13.0 to 15.0% in 2010, an upward revision from the earlier forecast of 7.0 to 9.0%.

The latest data from the Department of Statistics show that the Singapore economy grew at a stronger pace in the first quarter of 2010. The economy expanded by 16.9% on a year-on-year basis, higher than the growth of 15.5% estimated in May. On a seasonally-adjusted quarter-on-quarter annualised basis, the economy grew by 45.9%, compared to an earlier estimate of 38.6%. The revision is primarily due to an upward adjustment to the growth estimate for the manufacturing sector (specifically the biomedical manufacturing cluster).

MITI said advance estimates for the second quarter of 2010 indicate that the economy has continued to expand strongly. Compared to the same period last year, real GDP is expected to grow by 19.3%. On a sequential basis, the economy grew by 26.0% in the second quarter.

The manufacturing sector is estimated to have grown by 45.5% year-on-year. Growth was driven by a surge in the output of the biomedical manufacturing cluster, as well as a strong expansion in electronics, underpinned by healthy worldwide demand for electronics products. The construction sector is estimated to have grown by 13.5% on a year-on-year basis, compared to 10.2% growth in the first quarter of 2010. This was supported by an increase in public sector construction activities.

Tey Tze Ming, market strategist at Saxo Capital Markets, forecasts Singapore's STI will hit 3050 in the third quarter. He tells CNBC's Adam Bakhtiar and Oriel Morrison that investors should be long stocks that generate their revenue in Singapore dollars:

Economic View: Singing from the same hymn sheet - - Goodbody economist, Deirdre Ryan, comments  -- "Irish economic forecasts have been in an upward revision cycle in recent months and the ESRI follows this trend also in its latest Quarterly Economic Commentary. The Institute now expects GDP growth of 0.3% for 2010 (was -0.5%), with a marginal decline still expected in GNP of -0.3%. For 2011 they have also put through modest upgrades to forecasts, with GDP of 2.8% now expected (vs 2.5% previously). Similar to our own forecast, the expansion in GDP this year is driven wholly by the contribution from the external sector, where the momentum proved particularly impressive in Q1 and where more recent indicators such as industrial production (+5% yoy in May) have pointed to a continuing strong pipeline of manufacturing activity.

Although the ESRI expects a very modest resumption of consumer spending to occur this year (+0.3%), it will be 2011 before any meaningful growth is seen in spending, with a 1.3% growth in consumption forecast for next year, (in line with our own estimate). Employment levels are forecast to continue contracting throughout 2010 (-3.7%), and remain flat in 2011, indicative of the challenging domestic demand outlook, while unemployment is forecast to average at 13.3% this year and fall only modestly to 13% in 2011.

Overall, this latest update from the ESRI is in line with our own views, where we upgraded forecasts following the recent Q1 GDP data and now expect GDP growth of 1.6% for 2010, before an acceleration to 3% next year. It also follows the upgrade by the Dept of Finance to their forecasts last week, who have pencilled in 1% growth in GDP for 2010. While significant challenges still remain for the Irish economy, in particular a very difficult labour market picture and high unemployment rate, much is still to be done in relation to fiscal consolidation, this latest upgrade to forecasts is encouraging nonetheless."

Greece will be ready to return to international bond markets next year, if conditions are good, Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou told CNBC:

Tesco Expansion: Tesco Ireland, the biggest supermarket chain operating in Ireland,  is to open seven new stores and create jobs as part of a €113m investment in the Republic of Ireland.

The company plans to redevelop some existing stores and open additional ones.

The company, which currently employs more than 13,000 people in Ireland, says it will create 748 new jobs over the year with 266 jobs to be created in Naas, 110 each in Counties Galway and Waterford, 90 in Mayo, 80 in Westmeath and 60 in Tipperary.

Tesco reported in March that sales fell in the year to the end of February by 7.5% to €2.9bn, due to lower prices.

Discussing how the upcoming results from Europe's bank stress tests will impact the euro, with John Kyriakopoulos, head of currency strategy at NAB Global Markets Research, speaking with CNBC's Martin Soong, Karen Tso & Bernard Lo:

Reaction of financial markets can help to shape recovery: Davy chief economist, Rossa White, comments  -- "Risky assets have rallied over the last two weeks. This is important so that worries about economic recovery begin to dissipate. It is almost chicken-and-egg. If enough investors believe that recovery is unsustainable, tighter financial conditions could impinge recovery (one of the problems too is that the softest leading indicator seems to put a heavy weight on financial market variables). Some better macro numbers, recent extreme bearishness and a healthy start to the US earnings season have led to a rally in equities and credit. The more that financial conditions ameliorate, the better the chance of activity remaining resilient.

US financial conditions deteriorated sharply in response to the savage sell-off in equities and to a lesser extent credit. Falling long-term interest rates were not enough to compensate. The Bloomberg index showed that conditions had deteriorated in May to their worst point since July 2009 and had scraped around that level for most of June. But the recent rally has seen a leap back to early May levels. It matters because the rally in equity markets no doubt contributed to the rebound in US consumer spending. Household net worth rose for four straight quarters from Q2 2009 onwards, helping to limit the rise in compensatory saving.

But at this point in the cycle, it is perhaps just as important to focus on the business sector. What happens to the cost of credit will help to partly determine whether business investment kicks in significantly. Credit spreads had tightened a long way until the dislocation of the last few months. In that context, the overnight news from Intel is promising. Given reasonable credit conditions, businesses are looking to re-invest and Intel is seeing it through its order book."

US markets

On Tuesday, the Dow rose 147 points or 1.44% to 10,363.

The S&P 500 advanced 1.53% and the Nasdaq gained 1.99%.

Asia markets

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index jumped 1.3% Wednesday.

The Nikkei gained 2.71%; China's Shanghai Composite added 0.76%; Australia's S&P/ASX 200 Index advanced 1.87% and India's Sensex Index climbed 0.21%.

Asia benchmarks

In Europe, the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 is up 0.34% Wednesday.

The ISEQ has risen 0.97% in Dublin.

CRH has risen 0.11%; Elan has added 2.80%; AIB is up 1.06% and BoI has gained 3.29%; Glanbia has risen 1.92%.

Glanbia (Buy, Closing Price €3.12); Positive trading update from Glanbia; Goodbody analyst, Liam Igoe, comments  -- "Glanbia said this morning that it is trading “in line with expectations” and that it would have a very strong first half on the back of the recovery in the commodity dairy business in Ireland. Within Dairy Ireland, the improvement in dairy product prices has led to a turnaround from losses last year to profits in 2010. This is in line with our full-year forecasts where we anticipate profit of €10m, versus losses of €19m in 2009. By contrast, the Irish Consumer Foods operations had a 'tough' first half, due, in part, to the same recovery in dairy markets, which pushed up its key raw material price (milk), but also due to an 'extremely competitive' retail environment.

 We have factored in a reduction in profits in Consumer Foods (from €29m to €23m) to allow for these pressures. Internationally, the cheese and nutritionals operations continue to show good growth. The joint ventures – Southwest Cheese in the US, Glanbia Cheese in the UK and Nutricima in Nigeria – have all shown an improvement in H1. The 40% expansion at Southwest has been completed and the plant is currently operating at full capacity, which should also bode well for the supply of whey input into Glanbia’s nutritionals business in Idaho. The progress being made appears at least in line with our forecasts. The statement does not comment on the possibility of a new vote on any restructuring of the company to sell the Dairy Ireland business back to the co-op, though we would expect some news on this in the autumn."

Irish Financials: ECOFIN and Minister for Finance comment on stress tests; Goodbody analyst, Ken Darmody, comments - - "Comments after yesterdays ECOFIN meeting indicate that the European stress test results due to be released on July 23, will now be followed by a more detailed announcement two weeks later. More time is needed in order to publish a coordinated detailed breakdown of each bank causing the timeline to slip into August. Comments throughout the day suggest that banks failing the stress test will be required to seek capital privately at first before turning to their own state.

The Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, Olli Rehn, informed the market that should there be excessive problems, which could not be covered by either market financing or national backstops, then a third line of defence is available through the EU. He followed this by stating that he did not expect this to be used. In relation to Ireland, the Minister for Finance commented in recent days on the states intentions to take part in the AIB recapitalisation if and when required. Further comments yesterday from the Minister indicate that the Irish stress test along with NAMA has been more rigorous than the European tests."