Singapore NODX continues to contract with an 8.9% decline in August

Singapore’s non-oil domestic exports (NODX) contracted for the month of August, data from the country’s trade agency Enterprise Singapore showed on Tuesday morning (Sept 17, 2019).

The weak performance last month – which marks the sixth consecutive month of a year-on-year decline - was due to a fall in both electronic and non-electronic exports.

NODX sank by 8.9% year-on-year for last month, which was better than the 12.2% contraction private economists had predicted in a Reuters poll. For the month of July, NODX fell by a revised 11.4%.

For last month, NODX shipments to most of the top markets fell, except for China. The worst performers were Hong Kong, the United States, and Malaysia, which had posted double-digit declines in shipments of both electronic and non-electronic goods.

Shipments to China was boosted by a 58% year-on-year increase in non-electronic products, offset by a 20.1% decline in electronic shipments. Overall, NODX shipments to China for August was up by 38.5%.

For last month, shipments of electronic goods sank by 25.9%, extending from the 24.2% decline in the previous month. Contributors to the fall were integrated circuits, personal computers, and disk media products which contracted by 32.1%, 28.6%, and 11.9%, respectively.

Non-electronic products posted a 2.2% decline in shipments in August, easing from the 6.7% fall in the previous month. The largest contributors to the decline were pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, and primary chemicals, which fell by 23.6%, 20.8%, and 29.3%, respectively.

Total trade for last month was down by 8.6%, following the 6.2% decline in the previous month, as both total imports and exports fell.