Singapore's external trade expands 0.9% in April

Singapore's non-oil domestic exports (NODX), a key gauge of the export performance of the small and highly open economy, expanded by 0.9 percent year on year in April, trade promotion agency International Enterprise (IE) Singapore said on Friday. The better-than-expected performance reversed the 6.6 percent contraction in March, which was mainly due to an increase in non- electronic NODX, which outweighed the contraction in electronic NODX. On yearly basis, the electronic NODX contracted by 8.7 percent in April, easing the decline of 16.1 percent in March. Meanwhile, the non-electronic NODX expanded by 5.5 percent during the same period, in contrast to the 2.4 percent contraction in the previous month. The IE Singapore said the decrease in electronic domestic exports was largely due to PCs, ICs and disk drives, and the growth in non-electronic NODX was led by double-digit growth in petrochemicals, specialized machinery and printed matter. The NODX to all of the top 10 NODX markets, except Hong Kong SAR, EU, Japan, South Korea and Indonesia, grew in April. The top three contributors to the NODX expansion in April were the Chinese mainland, the U.S. and Malaysia. The NODX to the Chinese mainland rose by 22.6 percent year on year in April, accelerating from the previous month's revised 16.0 percent surge. The NODX to the U.S. rose by 11.7 percent on year, reversing the contraction of 1.8 percent in March. Meanwhile, the growth of NODX to Malaysia was accelerated from 6.1 percent in March to 10.4 percent in April. On the other hand, exports to Hong Kong SAR, EU, Japan, South Korea and Indonedia dropped respectively by 18.8 percent, 10.9 percent, 8.4 percent, 11.3 percent and 5.2 percent on year. On a month-on-month seasonally adjusted basis, the NODX rose by 9.0 percent in April, compared to the previous month's 8.9 percent contraction, mainly due to a growth in both electronic and non- electronic NODX.