Singapore's non-oil exports declined more than expected in May, due to a drop in electronic shipments, the latest data from International Enterprise (IE) Singapore showed Monday.
The non-oil domestic exports (NODX) fell 4.6 percent year-on-year in May, following a 1 percent decrease in April. Economists had forecast a 1 percent decline in exports.
In May, NODX to all of the top ten markets, except China, Thailand, Hong Kong and Taiwan, decreased. The top three contributors to the decline were South Korea, Malaysia and Indonesia, according to the trade promotion agency.
Shipments of electronic products contracted 13.2 percent annually in May after a 9 percent fall in the previous month. Non-electronic exports, on the other hand, grew by a marginal 0.2 percent following a 3.3 percent increase in April.
On a month-on-month seasonally adjusted basis, NODX declined 1.1 percent in May compared to the previous month's 1.1 percent expansion.
NODX to the South Korea plunged 41.1 percent year-on-year in May and shipments to Malaysia contracted 20.4 percent. Exports to Indonesia fell 19.7 percent.
Recently, economists surveyed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore downgraded their forecast for NODX to 2.5 percent this year from an earlier estimate for 4 percent growth. They also lowered their forecast for this years' GDP growth to 2.3 percent from the prior estimate of 2.8 percent.
Singapore's gross domestic product expanded by a seasonally adjusted annualized 1.8 percent in the first quarter of 2013 compared to the previous three months, according the most recent data from the Ministry of Trade and Industry.
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