SINGAPORE: Singapore’s non-oil domestic exports (NODX) shrank by a worse-than-expected 7.2 per cent in December from a year ago, the second straight month of contraction, after shipments to China fell more sharply.
As with November’s unexpected 3.4 per cent decline in NODX, much of the blame lay on the contraction in shipments to China, which was Singapore’s largest export market in 2014.
Economists polled by Reuters were expecting December NODX to fall 5.1 per cent from a year earlier.
Shipments to all of Singapore’s top 10 NODX markets, except the US, Japan and Hong Kong, contracted in December. Apart from China, they fell most sharply for South Korea and Taiwan.
On a month-on-month seasonally adjusted (SA) basis, NODX declined by 3.1 per cent last month, after November’s 3.8 per cent decrease, due to the contraction in non-electronic exports which outweighed the flat growth in electronic shipments.
On an SA basis, the level of NODX reached S$12.5 billion in December, lower than the S$12.9 billion registered in the previous month.
