Singapore's main exports grew 18.2% in May from a year ago, picking up speed on the back of strong electronics shipments to the city-state's main markets including the U.S., the government said June 16.
Non-oil domestic exports (NODX) in May were valued at 13.42 billion Singapore dollars (US$8.49 billion), compared with 13.36 billion dollars in April when they were up 10% year-on-year, International Enterprise Singapore (IE Singapore) said.
"NODX increased by 18% in May 2006, higher than the previous month's 10% growth on stronger expansion of electronic and non-electronic domestic exports," said IE Singapore.
Shipments to the top 10 NODX markets were all up with Indonesia the only exception, it said, adding that strong increases were recorded in the U.S., Hong Kong, the EU and Malaysia.
Singapore electronics exporters, like their regional counterparts, are riding on the strong demand from the world's major economies, said David Cohen, a regional economist with research house Action Economics in Singapore. Within the electronics sector, telecom equipment exports chalked the fastest increase of 96% to 583 million dollars followed by a 42.8% jump in shipments of chips worth 2.1 billion dollars, IE Singapore said.
Disk drive exports plunged 33.5%. However, exports of non-electronic goods were also strong, rising 18.1% to 7.04 billion dollars in May, boosted by demand for pharmaceuticals and petrochemicals. Pharmaceuticals rose 18.2% to 1.2 billion dollars and petrochemicals were 18.7% higher at one billion dollars.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2006
