Whatta Surprise! Non oil domestic exports surged 30.5% in Feb

Electronics also staged a comeback with shipments rising a healthy 23.3% yoy.

According to Leslie Tng, economist at OSK-DMG, NODX surprised on the upside beating all expectations.

“ Following the 2.4% drop in NODX in Jan, we had expected a rebound in Feb because of the favorable base in Feb last year (as Chinese New Year fell during the month then), but not at this red-hot pace. Also a good surprise was the recovery in electronics exports following the 11% contraction in Jan,” she said.

With regards electronics rising by 23.3%, Ms Tng said this was mainly on the back of a strong performance from integrated circuits (+20.2%), parts of PCs (37.1%) and disk media products (38.7%).

Non-electronics NODX also expanded robustly by 34.0% yoy in Feb after the 2.8% growth in Jan. Once again, strong pharmaceuticals shipments of 44.5% yoy (vs. 20.2% in Jan) helped to offset the weakness in petrochemical exports, which declined 5.0% in the month (vs. -23.2% in Jan).

Looking at the first two months of the year to weed out the Chinese New Year effect, NODX has risen 12.9% yoy (vs. 13.8% in the same period last year) with electronics up a decent 3.9% (vs. -2.6% in Jan-Feb 2011) and pharmaceuticals by 32.5% (vs. 16.9% in Jan-Feb 2011).

“This decent start to the year so far provides us with some confidence that the worst could be over for NODX. Moreover, the electronics industry leading indicators like the SEMI book-to-bill ratio, US new orders for electronics and ISM new orders have been improving, suggesting the possibility of more upside for electronics ahead. We continue to maintain our 4.0% growth projection for NODX for 2012, which is within IE Singapore’s forecast range of 3-5%,” said Ms Tng.