The FINANCIAL — Singapore’s key non-oil exports fell in August due to a steep decline in shipments of both non-electronics and electronics goods, according to Nasdaq.
Exports of goods made in Singapore fell 8.4% in August compared with a year earlier, after falling a revised 0.7% in July, trade promotion agency International Enterprise Singapore said on September 17.
The median estimate of seven economists in a poll by The Wall Street Journal was for August exports to contract 3.0% from a year earlier.
Compared with the previous month, exports fell 4.6% in seasonally adjusted terms, after expanding 2.5% on month in July. Four economists in the poll had projected a median 0.8% expansion in August.
The city-state’s shipments to China, its biggest export destination, fell 8.2% in August from a year earlier, compared with a 1.6% on-year fall in the previous month, IE Singapore said.
Exports to the European Union fell 9.0% on year after falling 1.7% in July. Exports to the U.S., however, grew 8.8% after the previous month’s 0.1% decline.
Electronics exports declined 2.7% on year in August, reversing a 2.5% growth in July, while non-electronics shipments fell 10.6%, compared with a 2.0% fall in July.
In the non-electronics sector, the highly volatile pharmaceutical exports fell 9.3%, after growing 18.9% in the previous month. Pharmaceutical shipments are difficult to predict as Singapore has a small number of very large factories producing drugs. A batch of expensive cancer drugs can significantly push up the value of exports in a month, while long periods of maintenance shutdown can have the opposite effect.
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