sin01

Singapore January non-oil exports fall 10.1%

  • Feb 18, 2019

SINGAPORE’S trade sector began 2019 on a weak note with non-oil domestic exports (NODX) for January sliding a worse-than-expected 10.1 per cent from a year ago as both electronic and non-electronic shipments shrank.

Analysts polled by Bloomberg poll were expecting a 3.5 per cent decline, given the high base effect of January 2018 when exports rose 13 per cent.

The drop in January 2019 was the the third straight month of decline, and comes after a 8.5 per cent year-on-year fall in December last year and 2.8 per cent decrease in November,  Enterprise Singapore figures released on Monday showed.

Exports of electronic products were down 15.9 per cent year on year in December, after a 11.2 per cent decrease in the previous month. Contributing the most to this decline were contractions in exports of personal computers (-34.3 per cent), disk media products (-29.2 per cent), and integrated circuits (-6.8 per cent).

Exports of non-electronic products declined 7.9 per cent, continuing the previous month’s 7.4 per cent fall. This was due most to falls in exports of specialised machinery (-32.8 per cent), pharmaceuticals (-11.8 per cent) and non-electric engines & motors (-40.9%).

Shipments to Singapore’s top 10 markets declined last month, led by China (-25.4 per cent), South Korea (-31.4 per cent) and Hong Kong (-11.7 per cent).

Exports to China contracted by 25.4 per cent in January, after the previous month’s 15.4 per cent expansion, led by non-monetary gold (-94.9 per cent), specialised machinery (-55.2 per cent) and measuring instruments (-40.9 per cent).

On a month-on-month seasonally adjusted basis, NODX was down 5.7 per cent in January, following December’s 4 per cent decline, due also to falls in both electronic and non-electronic NODX.

Figures released last Friday showed NODX growth slowed sharply to 4.2 per cent last year from 8.8 per cent in 2017, with exports dipping 1.1 per cent in the final quarter of 2018. Enterprise Singapore maintained its growth forecasts for NODX at 0 to 2 per cent for 2019.

Source: https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/government-economy/singapore-january-non-oil-exports-fall-101