Singapore non-oil domestic exports surge 15.5% in May, beating forecasts

SINGAPORE'S exports logged another month of strong growth in May as non-oil domestic exports (NODX) beat forecasts to jump 15.5 per cent over the same month a year ago thanks largely to non-electronic shipments.

This was significantly better than the 3 per cent increase predicted by economists in a Bloomberg poll.

May's surge followed from April's 11.8 per cent rise. The increase came as non-electronic exports outweighed sliding electronics shipments according to Enterprise Singapore data out on Monday.

Shipments of electronic products declined by 7.8 per cent, following the 6.9 per cent decrease in the previous month. The fall was led by integrated circuits, parts of PCs as well as diodes and transistors.

Meanwhile, non-electronic NODX surged by 26.2 per cent in May 2018, after a 19.6 per cent increase in the previous month. Civil engineering equipment parts, food preparations and pharmaceuticals contributed the most to the growth.

Shipments to five of Singapore's top 10 NODX markets - South Korea, China, Malaysia, Taiwan and Thailand - decreased compared with the same month a year earlier. The top contributors to NODX growth were the European Union, the US and Japan.

Non-oil re-exports - which are seen as a proxy for the wholesale trade sector - rose 4 per cent in May after an 8.2 per cent rise in April, due to growth in both electronic and non-electronic re-exports.