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Singapore: Key exports shrink for ninth straight month
SINGAPORE: Key exports fell at a steeper rate in June in Singapore, its ninth straight month of decline, data from Enterprise Singapore (EnterpriseSG) show.
Non-oil domestic exports (Nodx) shrank 15.5% year-on-year (y-o-y) in June, following a revised 14.8% fall in May.
The drop was slightly less than the 15.6% fall forecast by analysts in a Bloomberg poll.
In real terms, after adjusting for inflation, Nodx decreased by 9%, following a 7.8% fall in May, EnterpriseSG said.
Non-electronics shipments shrank 15.4% in June, a sharper contraction than the 10.7% decline in May.
Petrochemicals (minus 34%) and primary chemicals (minus 61.8%) declined from their highs a year ago in June 2022.
Pharmaceutical shipments, meanwhile, slid 29.5% in June after falling 14% in May.
Electronics shipments posted a smaller decline in June, falling by 15.9% y-o-y after contracting by 27.2% in May.
Integrated circuits, disk media products and parts of integrated circuits contributed the most to the drop in electronics exports, with the last segment seeing the sharpest fall of 44.8%.
On a seasonally adjusted month-on-month basis, Nodx grew 5.4% in June, reversing May’s 14.6% decline.
Breaking down shipments to Singapore’s top 10 markets, local exports to China continued to recover, rising another 3.1% in June. This was the second straight month of increases since June 2022.
China is the second-biggest export market for Singapore, with a 15.8% share of Nodx in the January to June period.
The United States remains the biggest export market – shipments to the United States fell 1.8% in June, reversing from a 4.8% gain in the previous month.
Intra-regional trade with South-East Asian countries (Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand) also posted sharper declines in June.
On a y-o-y basis, total trade contracted by a sharper 19.2% in June, following a 17.9% decline in May.
Advance estimates showed last week that the Singapore economy narrowly avoided a technical recession in the second quarter. It grew 0.7% y-o-y, faster than the 0.4% growth in the first quarter.
On a seasonally adjusted quarter-on-quarter basis, the economy expanded by 0.3%, a turnaround from the 0.4% contraction in the first quarter. — The Straits Times/ANN