Here’s why Singapore export is still plummeting downhill

This is despite the improvement from 10.6% YoY decline in June.

While Singapore's non-oil domestic exports improved with its flat growth in August, it is still far from showing signs of recovery.

According to DBS, the export sector is not out of the woods yet, with NODX falling by 1.9% MoM in August, which is a similar pace of decline posted in the previous month.

"While this could be seen as an improvement from the drastic 10.6% year-on-year plunge in the previous month, it’s partly due to the low base in the same period last year," DBS said.

It added, "Simply put, the near term cyclical trend for NODX is still down, not up."

Based on the latest data posted by Department of Statistics, exports took a hot from the lacklustre results of electronic exports.

Electronic NODX declined 6% in August following the 12.9% contraction in the previous month. This was largely due to PC, disk drives and ICs.

Meanwhile, the increase in non-electronic shipments last month outweighed the decline in electronic exports, the agency noted.

Non-electronic products saw an increase of 2.7%, rebounding from a 9.5% contraction in July. This was led by non-electric engines and motors, specialised machinery and structural parts made of iron, steel and aluminum.