ZCZC
BCN-21
SINGAPORE-TRADE-GROWTH
Singapore witnesses continued trade growth in Q2
SINGAPORE, Aug. 13, 2018 (BSS/Xinhua) – Enterprise Singapore, a government
agency, announced Monday that Singapore’s total merchandise trade expanded by
10.2 percent in the second quarter, compared to the 2.5 percent increase in
the first quarter, as both oil and non-oil trade grew.
It said the city-state’s oil trade surged 23.2 percent in the second
quarter amid higher oil prices than a year ago, after the 5.1 percent growth
in the previous quarter. Non-oil trade rose by 7.1 percent in the second
quarter, following the 1.9 percent growth in the first quarter.
Singapore’s non-oil exports, including both non-oil domestic exports
(NODX) and non-oil re-exports (NORX), grew by 7.3 percent year on year in the
second quarter.
In a breakdown, the NODX grew 9.4 percent year on year, and the NORX grew
by 5.7 percent year on year. Among the NODX, domestic exports of electronic
products declined by 7.6 percent year on year, and that of non-electronic
products hiked 16.6 percent year on year.
Meanwhile, Singapore’s oil domestic exports grew by 20.6 percent year on
year, extending the 8.6 percent growth in the previous quarter; and the oil
re-exports grew by 6.1 percent, compared to the 19.7 percent contraction in
the first quarter.
Enterprise Singapore attributes the better-than-expected performance of
total trade and NODX to the favorable sector-specific export trends in the
food and beverages, machinery and pharmaceutical clusters, as well as an
improvement in oil prices.
It adjusted Singapore’s total trade growth projection and NODX growth
projection for the whole year of 2018 to 5-6 percent and 2.5-3.5 percent,
respectively.
Statistics show the country’s total trade grew by 11.1 percent year on
year to 967.1 billion Singapore dollars (about 703.45 billion U.S. dollars)
in 2017, and its NODX grew by 8.8 percent to 174.7 billion Singapore dollars
in that year.
Enterprise Singapore also announced on Monday Singapore’s total services
trade grew by three percent year on year in the second quarter, to 119.3
billion Singapore dollars, with services exports and imports increasing by
3.8 percent and 2.1 percent, respectively.
BSS/XINHUA/HR/1140