Singapore’s December non-oil domestic exports surprisingly drop

Singapore’s non-oil domestic exports were reported to have shrunk 1.5% year-on-year in December, while confounding market consensus of a 3.3% growth.

That followed a 1% YoY surge in November.

Exports of electronic products decreased for the 17th consecutive month in December, by 11.7% year-on-year, driven by declines in PCs (-34.3% YoY), ICs and diodes (-7.9% YoY), as well as parts of PCs (-25.7% YoY).

Meanwhile, exports of non-electronic products went up 1.4% year-on-year, following a 5.2% rise in November. Shipments of pharmaceuticals soared 56.9%, those of non-monetary gold rose 55.5%, while those of miscellaneous manufactured articles increased 69.1% YoY.

Singapore’s Dollar was 0.11% weaker against its US counterpart on Wednesday, with the USD/SGD currency pair last trading at 1.3440. Hawkish Federal Reserve remarks cooled early rate cut expectations, while pushing the USD/SGD pair up to 1.3456 on Wednesday – a fresh two-month high.

Fed Governor Christopher Waller said on Tuesday that while US inflation was nearing the Fed’s target of 2%, the central bank should not decide to cut interest rates until it was more evident low inflation was sustained.