Singapore exports are down, but not just because of pharma

The decline was primarily driven by the downturn in China demand.

Singapore’s non-oil domestic exports (NODX) faced a steep decline this April 2017. Analysts argue that this was brought about by the big drop in pharmaceutical exports.

The overall performance has now subdued, meaning that the decline in the export industry is just temporary. Natixis reports that growth rate of the rest of exports turned downward sharply. This means that it is not just pharma that contributed to the decline.

Here’s more from Natixis:

The key reason is that the Q1 upturn was primarily driven by higher Chinese imports. Given the recently tightening measures by the PBoC, high frequency data from China have decelerated.

We believe this is a trend that will continue into Q2 2017. That means that although April’s sharp downturn is likely exaggerated by the volatility of pharmaceutical trade, it is primarily driven by the downturn of China demand as ex pharma exports also decelerated sharply.

In short, Singapore’s export growth is likely to decelerate in Q2 2017 from Q1 2017.