Illustrative image (Source: asia-city.com)
Singapore (VNA) – Singapore’s non-oil domestic exports (NODX) slid 7.2 percent in December last year, from a year earlier, as shipment of non-electronics products dropped 10.3 percent, International Enterprise (IE) Singapore reported on January 19.
The global continuous fall of oil prices drove the country’s oil product exports to drop by 17.5 percent. Meanwhile, the export turnover of chemical products and machinery decreased by 41.8 and 43.5 percent, respectively.
Notably, shipments to Singapore’s top 10 NODX markets, except for the US, Japan, and Hong Kong (China), fell last month, the IE data showed. The top contributors to the decline were China, Republic of Korea, and Taiwan (China).
Experts forecast that demand for Singaporean products will continue declining in the foreseeable future as the US economy has not recovered stably while the Chinese economy, the world’s second largest, has fallen into recession.
A recent online survey of 500 consumers, conducted by the Singapore Management University (SMU), showed that Singaporeans’ inflation expectation fell to 2.74 percent in last December from 2.92 percent in September, the lowest rate within four years.
The low expectation came from globally depressed demand, particularly from emerging markets, signs of economic downturn, domestic price pressures and labour costs.-VNA
