Singapore’s non-oil exports growth slows substantially

Singapore’s non-oil domestic exports were reported to have increased 2.7% year-on-year in September, while slowing sharply from a 10.7% YoY growth in August.

A consensus of analyst estimates had pointed to a much faster increase, by 9.5% YoY.

In September, shipments of electronic products rose 4% YoY, which has been a sharp drop from the 35.1% YoY surge in August. Growth was propelled by:

– disk media products (+64.6% YoY);
– PCs (+55% YoY);
– integrated circuits (+4.8% YoY).

In the meantime, shipments of non-electronic products rose 2.3% YoY, also slowing from a 3.6% YoY surge in August. Growth was driven mostly by:

– other specialty chemicals (+46.2% YoY);
– pharmaceuticals (+35% YoY);
– specialized machinery (+12.9% YoY).

Among trading partners, Singapore’s shipments grew the most to Indonesia (52.3%), the European Union (37.6%), South Korea (34.9%) and Thailand (3.2%).

The USD/SGD currency pair settled 0.28% lower at 1.3102 on Friday. For the week, the exotic currency pair went up 0.41%.