Singapore's total merchandise trade contracts by 9.5% in 2015

Due to a steep decline in oil trade.

Singapore's total merchandise trade dropped by 9.5% for 2015, reversing its measly 0.1% expansion in the preceding year.

According to IE Singapore, the decline was mostly on back of a 36% contraction in oil trade in 2015, which effectively wiped out the 0.4% increase in non-oil trade.
The contraction is smaller than official forecasts of -10.5% to -10.0%.

Total merchandise trade reached $884.1 billion in 2015, lower than the previous year’s achievement of $977.0 billion. Total merchandise exports contracted by 7.2% in 2015 while merchandise imports declined by 12.1% in the same period. 

Singapore’s total non-oil domestic exports (NODX) contracted by 0.1% in 2015, after a 1.5% decline in 2014.

IE Singapore maintained its growth projection for 2016 at between 0.0 and 2.0 per cent for NODX and adjusted downwards to between -1.0 and 1.0 per cent for total merchandise trade.