Singapore export growth may have plunged to 1.8% in September

On 17 October, International Enterprise Singapore will announce September non-oil domestic exports data at 08:30 local time. We expect NODX growth to have slowed to 1.8% y/y from 5.1% in August.

The export profile likely remained the same, with non-electronics products supporting the overall print. In January-August 2011, electronics exports contracted 13% y/y, while non-electronics grew 16.4%. The US semiconductor book-to-bill ratio fell further to 0.8 in August, its 11th consecutive month below 1.0. Singapore’s electronics PMI also continued to fall in September to 47.2, the fifth consecutive decline. As such, despite a more favourable base effect in September, we expect electronics exports to have contracted further, by 12.3% y/y.

Conversely, non-electronics exports grew strongly in August, at 20.3% y/y. The gains were reportedly due to exports of ships and boats, optical equipment and disk media products, and may have been one-off in nature.