Thursday, July 17, 2008

Singapore's non-oil domestic exports fall 10.5% in June

Recent spate of unimpressive financial news will leave people more worried. The last few days were ladden with more bad news on US financial crisis, which lead to a frenzy in the stock market and oil prices.

Coming back to Singapore, this is not the first bad news on Exports. The turmoil affected our exports, which were made worst with all time high inflation rates. The fear is, if the US goes into a deep recession, and many other economies being affected, will it lead to a deeper and more prolong global downturn?

SINGAPORE: Singapore's key non-oil domestic exports (NODX) fell an annual 10.5 per cent in June, pulled down by weaker shipments to the US market as well as to China and Europe, the government said Thursday.

The drop, compared with the same month a year earlier, was steeper than the 1.8 per cent fall tipped in a poll of economists by Dow Jones Newswires.

June's figure was unchanged from the 10.5 per cent decline seen in May, the trade promotion agency International Enterprise Singapore (IE Singapore) said in its monthly report.

"The largest contributors to the NODX contraction were the US, EU 27 and China," it said.

On a month-on-month seasonally adjusted basis, the key exports grew 4.2 per cent last month after a 9.8 per cent fall in May, the agency said.

Total trade in June grew 14.4 per cent to S$82.3 billion, while NODX was worth S$12.79 billion, the trade agency said.

IE Singapore said poorer shipments of both electronics and non-electronics goods were behind last month's export decline.

Electronics exports, which have been dropping since February last year, contracted 14.6 per cent to S$4.8 billion in June while non-electronic shipments eased 7.9 per cent to S$7.95 billion, IE Singapore said.

NODX to the US in June recorded the largest decline of 24.3 per cent, to S$1.5 billion, a deterioration from the 22.3 per cent decline posted the previous month, it said.

To the European Union economies, NODX fell 16.1 per cent to S$2 billion, while shipments to China fell 11.7 per cent to S$1.3 billion, IE Singapore said.

Exports to Singapore's other top markets also contracted, with the exception of Malaysia, South Korea and Hong Kong, it said.

The monthly figures are a closely watched barometer of Singapore's export-led economy in which gross domestic product was valued at S$243.17 billion last year.

As of 2007, US was our No 2 export partner at 10.2%, while the decline of export to US is 24.3%. With decline in exports to a few other countries, Singapore's economy seems to be facing a worst situation than expected.

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