SINGAPORE- Singapore’s September non-oil domestic exports (NODX) grew 3.1 percent year-on-year, official data showed on Monday, slower than the previous month and missing forecasts due to declines in shipments for the Chinese and Hong Kong markets.
Economists had expected 7.1 percent growth in a Reuters poll. Exports had grown 11.4 percent in August.
On a seasonally adjusted month-on-month basis, NODX fell 4 percent, Enterprise Singapore data showed, versus the prior month’s 3.9 percent decline. Economists had forecast a 2.1 percent decline.
Electronic NODX fell 10.6 percent on year in September, with integrated circuits, disk media products and personal computer parts declining by 12.0 percent, 42.7 percent and 22.3 percent respectively.
Non-electronic NODX grew 7.6 percent, with pharmaceuticals, measuring instruments and non-monetary gold contributing the most to the growth.
Singapore’s economy is expected to have expanded at a slower pace in the third quarter, underlining the central bank’s challenge as it balances the urgency of tackling inflation without triggering a steep recession by over-tightening policy.
Advance data on Friday is expected to show gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 3.4 percent in July-September from a year ago, according to the median forecast of 19 economists in a Reuters poll.
The manufacturing industry, the Asian financial hub’s main growth engine, has underperformed due to slowing global economic activity, though the services sector outlook has improved after the removal of most COVID-19 curbs and the return of intrnational conferences and events in the past month.
The city-state’s economy expanded 4.4 percent year-on-year in the second quarter this year, though it had contracted 0.2 percent on a quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted basis.
