The Singapore economy is heavily dependent on trade, and non-oil domestic exports were worth about 70 per cent of the country's gross domestic product last year. -- ST PHOTO: ALPHONSUS CHERN
SINGAPORE'S exports declined for the fifth straight month in September as companies shipped fewer electronics and pharmaceuticals to the United States and Europe.
Non-oil domestic exports fell 5.7 per cent from a year earlier to S$13.8 billion, after declining a revised 13.9 per cent in August, trade agency International Enterprise Singapore said in a statement on Friday. Economists had expected a 8.4 per cent to 9.7 per cent drop.
Exports dropped a seasonally adjusted 0.8 per cent last month from August, when they advanced a revised 1.9 per cent, the latest evidence the worsening financial crisis has reduced demand for Asian exports.
The Singapore economy is heavily dependent on trade, and non-oil domestic exports were worth about 70 per cent of the country's gross domestic product last year.
Economists had expected monthly exports in September to be flat as a mild recovery in drug sales offset persistent weakness in electronic shipments.
Electronics shipments slipped 10.7 per cent in September from a year earlier, the 20th consecutive drop, following a revised 19.6 per cent decline in August. Sales of electronics products were worth S$5.6 billion last month, compared with S$5.2 billion in August.
Petrochemicals climbed 13.5 per cent.
Semiconductor shipments rose 0.1 per cent from a year earlier after falling 16.4 per cent in August. Disk-drive exports declined 8.1 per cent in September.
Pharmaceutical shipments dropped 28.7 per cent last month, after sliding 45.2 per cent in August. Drug shipments were valued at S$1.3 billion in September, compared with S$1.14 billion the month before.
Non-oil sales to the European Union, Singapore's largest overseas market, fell 23.6 per cent in September. Shipments to the US, its second-biggest market, dropped 24.5 per cent, while exports to China climbed 11.3 per cent from a year earlier.
Singapore is technically in recession after amid slowing export demand and a slump in manufacturing, prompting the central bank to end a policy favouring gains in its currency. The government expects overseas shipments to decline as much as 4 per cent this year, the worst performance since 2001.
'Labour markets and consumption in the US are getting worse, and Europe is not much better,' Mr Alvin Liew, an economist at Standard Chartered in Singapore told Bloomberg news.
'As long as the US and European economies remain weak, there is little chance of a recovery in Singapore's export demand.'
