SINGAPORE- Singapore’s August non-oil domestic exports (NODX) rose 7.7 percent from a year earlier, beating forecasts, official data showed on Thursday, helped by items such as non-monetary gold and specialized machinery.
That compared with a revised 5.9 percent increase in July. Economists had forecast a 3.7 percent increase for August, according to the median of eight estimates.
On a seasonally adjusted month-on-month basis, exports expanded 10.5 percent in August after a 1.2 percent rise in the previous month, Enterprise Singapore said in a statement. Economists had forecast a 0.9 percent rise.
Shipments of non-monetary gold rose 55.1 percent in August from a year earlier. The city-state is a big regional player in the gold trade, and exports can be affected by sharp swings in value. Electronics exports increased 5.7 percent.
Singapore’s record recession was deeper than first thought in the second quarter, data showed last month, signalling a lengthy path to recovery as the coronavirus pandemic dealt a major blow to Asia’s trade-reliant economies.
The city-state has been hit hard by COVID-19 with the country under a lockdown for most of the second quarter to curb the spread of the virus.
The government said it now expects full-year GDP to contract between 5 percent and 7 percent versus its previous forecast for a 4 percent to 7 percent decline. The transport and tourism hub is facing the biggest downturn in its history, expected to wipe out years of previous economic expansion.
Gross domestic product (GDP) fell a record 13.2 percent year-on-year in the second quarter, revised government data showed, versus the 12.6 percent drop seen in advance estimates.
The economy plunged 42.9 percent from the previous three months on an annualised and seasonally adjusted basis, also a record and larger than the 41.2 percent contraction in the government’s initial estimates.
