Singapore NODX deepens contraction in June with a 17.3% decline

Singapore’s non-oil domestic exports (NODX) contracted further for last month, extending to mark the fourth straight month of decline, data from Enterprise Singapore showed on Wednesday morning. The weak performance last month was due to a fall in both electronic and non-electronic exports.

NODX sank by 17.3% year-on-year for last month, almost double of the 9.6% fall private economists had predicted in a Bloomberg poll. For the month of May, NODX fell by a revised 16.3%.

Flash estimates last week showed Singapore’s gross domestic product (GDP) falling below expectations to expand by 0.1% for the second quarter. The flat GDP figure marks the slowest quarterly growth for the Republic since the economic downturn in mid-2009, when the economy had shrunk by 1.2%.

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

Shipments of electronic goods sank by 31.9% in June, extending from the 31.6% decline in the previous month. Contributors to the fall were integrated circuits, personal computers, and disk media products which had contracted by 33.0%, 44.6%, and 41.7%, respectively.

Non-electronic products posted a 12.4% decline in shipments in June, following the 11.1% fall in the previous month, due to shipment declines in non-monetary gold, petrochemicals, and pharmaceuticals, which fell by 50.2%, 16.7%, and 11.3%, respectively.

Total trade for June fell by 7.2%, following the 2.2% decline in the previous month, as both imports and exports declined, the country’s trade agency Enterprise Singapore said.