Disproving the economists, the non-oil domestic exports (NODX) in Singapore declined by 5.9 per cent over the year in February, revealed the latest statistics released by International Enterprise (IE) Singapore today.
This fall in export in February is biggest on-year decline since October 2016, when exports fell 14 per cent.
The figure of February has followed the 12.9 per cent expansion in the previous month and the large part of 2017.
The fall in export is being attributed to decline in both electronic and non-electronic exports.
“Electronic NODX declined for the third month after growth for the large part of 2017; non-electronics decreased after growing for eight months straight,” said IE in a press release.
“On a year-on-year basis, electronic NODX declined by 12.3 per cent in February 2018, following the 3.9 per cent decrease in the previous month. ICs, parts of PCs and diodes and transistors declined by 11.4 per cent, 48.1 per cent and 25.6 per cent respectively, and they contributed the most to the decrease in electronic domestic exports,” it added.
Non-electronic NODX decreased by 3.4 per cent in February 2018, after the 20.7 per cent expansion in the previous month. Non-monetary gold, petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals decreased by 49.4 per cent, 12.9 per cent and 8 per cent respectively, contributing the most to the decline in non-electronic NODX.
However, oil domestic exports grew by 5.1 per cent in February 2018, following the 15.4 per cent expansion in the preceding month.
On a year-on-year basis, total trade increased by 1.7 per cent in February 2018, with growth mainly due to imports while exports declined slightly. This follows the 7.1 per cent growth in the preceding month.
In addition to this, NODX to the majority of the top 10 markets decreased in February 2018, except the US, Japan and South Korea. The largest contributors to the NODX decline were China (-23.6 per cent), the EU 28 (-15.8 per cent) and Taiwan (-18.6 per cent).