Transport equipment leads foreign wholesale trade rebound in 1Q12

The sector alone recorded an impressive 29.1% qoq growth due to booming offshore trade in the first quarter.

Foreign wholesale trade also benefited from strong performances from other sectors like food, beverages & tobacco; telecommunications & computers; and household equipment & furniture which grew between 5-8.8% qoq.

Here's more from Statistics Singapore:

Compared to the previous quarter, foreign wholesale trade (seasonally adjusted) rose 6.2% in first quarter 2012. Excluding petroleum, foreign wholesale trade grew by 1.9%. After removing the price effect, foreign wholesale trade registered an increase of 3.8%. 

On a year-on-year basis, foreign wholesale trade grew by 12.7%. Excluding petroleum, foreign wholesale trade rose 5.5%. After adjusting for price changes, foreign wholesale trade increased 8.6%.

Quarter-on-Quarter Change (Seasonally Adjusted). After seasonal adjustment, foreign wholesale trade of the transport equipment sector recorded a strong positive growth of 29.1%, due to higher offshore trade in first quarter 2012 compared to the previous quarter. Other sectors which also reported higher foreign wholesale sales included food, beverages & tobacco (8.8%), telecommunications & computers (7.4%), household equipment & furniture (7.3%), petroleum & petroleum products (5.0%), ship chandlers & bunkering (3.3%) and industrial & construction machinery (1.6%).

On the other hand, the general wholesale trade and chemicals & chemical products sectors posted decreases of 6.4% and 5.6% respectively over fourth quarter 2011.

Year-on-Year Change. Compared to the same period a year ago, the telecommunications & computers sector
registered a 21.5% increase in foreign wholesale trade. The transport equipment, food, beverages & tobacco and industrial & construction machinery sectors also reported higher foreign sales of between 10.6% and 14.1%. 

Positive growth was also experienced in the petroleum & petroleum products (21.1%) and ship chandlers & bunkering (13.5%) sectors, due largely to higher prices compared to a year ago. After removing the price effect, foreign wholesale trade volume of the petroleum & petroleum products sector increased by a smaller 6.1% while that of the ship chandlers & bunkering sector declined marginally by 0.5%.

The general wholesale trade and chemicals & chemical products sectors reported smaller growth of 5.0% and 1.3% respectively while the household equipment & furniture sector experienced a marginal decline of 1.8% over first quarter 2011.