S'pore Feb exports fall 0.4%, beats forecast

Singapore's February non-oil exports fell a smaller-than-expected 0.4 per cent after seasonal adjustments, but slower shipments to the key US market reinforced signals of a weakening economy in the world's top consumer.

February's fall compared with market expectations for a 4 per cent drop, but some economists said that the sluggish exports will still probably drag on Singapore's economic growth in the first quarter.

The Singapore economy is heavily dependent on trade, and non-oil domestic exports were worth three quarters of the republic's gross domestic product last year.

'Given the global outlook there's room for some shrinkage in global demand for exports in the coming months,' said Vishnu Varathan, an economist at Forecast.

'This is bound to hit first quarter gross domestic product.

I was looking at 6 per cent for the quarter, but chances are that I will be revising it downwards,' he said.

Annual shipments to the United States, Singapore's largest non-oil exports market by country, fell 5.2 per cent in the second straight month of declines.

From a year earlier, non-oil exports in February rose 7.3 per cent to $12.9 billion (US$9.3 billion), trade agency International Enterprise Singapore said in a statement. That compared with a 2.8 per cent rise in January, and with a median forecast in a Reuters poll for an annual jump of 10 per cent.

The annual rise in exports was boosted by healthy pharmaceutical and petrochemical shipments, climbing 7.6 per cent and 10.5 per cent respectively. A breakdown on a seasonally adjusted basis was not available.

Electronics, which account for about 40 per cent of the city's non-oil exports, fell 1.3 per cent from a year ago.

'Electronics is the big question mark going forward. A global slowdown would affect electronic exports,' said David Cohen, an economist at Action Economics.

The decline in monthly exports in February follows a 8.4 per cent jump in January when tech shipments were surprisingly strong.

Economists had expected monthly exports in February to fall as a struggling US economy hit demand for electronics.

Singapore's non-oil domestic exports, which comprise of goods that have been manufactured in Singapore or undergone further processing, include mobile phones, medical instruments, and active ingredients for some blockbuster drugs.

South Korea's exports in February rose a higher-than-expected 20.2 per cent from a year ago, alleviating worries that a weakening global economy is denting demand for products from Asia's fourth-largest economy.