Singapore's non-oil domestic exports (NODX), a key gauge of the export performance of the economy, contracted 3.0 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of 2015, the country's trade promotion agency said Wednesday.
The contract was in contrast to the previous quarter's 2.1 percent increase, due to lower shipments of non-electronic NODX which outweighed the rise in electronic NODX, said International Enterprise (IE) Singapore. Exports of electronic products expanded by 1.8 percent year-on- year in the third quarter, following the flat growth in the previous quarter.
The growth in electronic NODX can be attributed to higher domestic exports of PCs, ICs and telecommunications equipment. Non-electronic NODX decreased by 4.9 percent in the third quarter, compared to the expansion of 2.9 percent in the previous quarter.
The contraction in non-electronic NODX can be attributed to lower domestic exports of petrochemicals, printed matter and primary chemicals. IE Singapore said that seven out of the top 10 NODX markets contracted for the third quarter, except Japan, Thailand and China' s Hong Kong.
The top contributors to the decline were the Chinese mainland, the European Union and China's Taiwan. Singapore's NODX to the Chinese mainland contracted by 7.7 percent for the third quarter, reversing from the 0.5 percent expansion in the previous quarter.
On a year-on-year basis, Singapore's total merchandise trade in the third quarter declined 8.5 percent, following the 10.7 percent decrease in the previous quarter. Singapore's total services trade rose by 1.9 percent to reach 90.8 billion Singapore dollars (64.5 billion U.S. dollars) in the third quarter, following the 2.3 percent increase in the previous one.
Looking ahead, total merchandise trade forecast for 2015 is expected to fall between 10.5 percent and 10.0 percent, while NODX forecast is narrowed downwards to between 0.5 percent and 1.0 percent.
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