Singapore's non-oil domestic exports grows

Singapore's non-oil domestic exports (NODX), a key gauge of the export performance of the small and highly open economy, expanded by 6.0 percent year on year in August, trade promotion agency International Enterprise (IE) Singapore said on Wednesday.

The performance reversed the 3.3 percent contraction in July, due to an increase in non-electronic exports which outweighed the decline in electronic exports.

On a year-on-year basis, electronic NODX contracted by 6.9 percent in August, after the 7.9-percent decline in the previous month. The decrease in electronic domestic exports was largely due to parts of PCs, ICs and disk drives, IE said.

Non-electronic NODX expanded by 12.1 percent, in contrast to the 1.1-percent decline in the previous month, led by growth in petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals and structures of ships & boats.

NODX to all of the top 10 NODX markets, except Hong Kong, Japan and Thailand, rose in August. The top three contributors to the NODX rise were South Korea, China's Taiwan and the Chinese mainland. NODX to China grew by 5.8 percent in August, following the 7.0 percent rise in the preceding month.

Trade contracted by 4.7 percent in August, after the 2.5- percent decrease in July. Total exports declined by 1.2 percent, while total imports decreased by 8.6 percent in August.