SINGAPORE - The value of wholesale trade - a major component of Singapore's service sector - shrank in the three months to March from the year-ago quarter.
Domestic wholesalers reported a 22.6 per cent slide, weighed down by lower prices of petroleum and chemical products, the Department of Statistics said on Friday (May 20). Excluding petroleum, the year on year decline was 11.4 per cent.
Also, after adjusting for the drastic price changes over the past year, domestic wholesale trade fell by a smaller 1.7 per cent from a year ago.
Foreign wholesale trade - a larger category that includes re-exports, offshore trade and transhipment cargo - fell 17.4 per cent in the fourth quarter. Excluding petroleum, the decline was 13.2 per cent.
Stripping out price changes, foreign wholesale trade rose 4 per cent from a year earlier.
