Singapore's domestic wholesale trade contracts 15.9% in Q4

SINGAPORE'S domestic wholesale trade shrank by 15.9 per cent year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2015, partly due to lower prices of petroleum and chemical products, the Department of Statistics announced on Friday.

Excluding petroleum, the contraction would have been 8.8 per cent. After adjusting for prices, overall domestic wholesale trade would have registered a 13.8 per cent increase.

The sharpest declines came from ship chandlers and bunkering, down 44.1 per cent year-on-year; general wholesale trade, down 29.3 per cent as well as petroleum and petroleum products down 23.6 per cent.

The largest areas of growth came from transport equipment, up by 14.5 per cent; telecommunications and computers, up 3.9 per cent; and electronic components, up 3.7 per cent.