NODX edged up 4.9% in February

The 9.4% YoY growth in non-electronic NODX outweighed the decrease in electronics.

Singapore’s non-oil domestic exports (NODX) bucked January’s downward trend after exports inched up 4.9% YoY in February as non-electronic NODX outweighed the decrease in electronics, Enterprise Singapore (ESG) revealed.

Non-electronic NODX grew 9.4% YoY in February, after the 7.9% decrease in the previous month. Non-monetary gold (+258.0%), pharmaceuticals (+12.0%) and food preparations (+18.5%) contributed the most to the increase in non-electronic NODX. On the other hand, electronic NODX declined 8%, easing from the 15.9% drop seen in January. Disk media products, PCs and diodes & transistors contracted by 42.2%, 28.9% and 29.6% respectively, contributing the most to the decrease in electronic NODX.

“NODX rebounded 4.9% YoY, beating our expectations for 2.8% YoY and also Bloomberg consensus forecast of -1.6% yoy,” OCBC Treasury Research commented. “This was largely attributable to a low base last year due to the timing of the CNY festive season and versus January’s readings of -10.1% YoY. Electronics NODX remained in contraction territory for the third straight month.”

On a MoM seasonally adjusted (SA) basis, NODX expanded 16% in February 2019, after the previous month’s 5.7% decline, due to the growth in both electronic and non-electronic NODX.

NODX to the top 10 markets increased in February, except Japan, South Korea, the EU 28 and Indonesia. The largest contributors to the NODX growth were China (+34.4%), Hong Kong (+41.9%) and the US (+6.6%), ESG noted. Additionally, NODX to emerging markets expanded 21.9% in February, extending the 2.2% increase in the previous month. The expansion in NODX to the emerging markets was due mainly to Latin America (+452.8%), CLMV (+3.2%) and the Carribean (+14.4%).

Meanwhile, non-oil retained imports of intermediate goods (NORI) decreased $100m from $5.9b in January to $5.8b in February.

Total trade edged up 3.3% YoY in February, extending the 4.2% growth in the preceding month. Total imports grew 4.4%, whilst total exports advanced 2.4%.

However, oil domestic exports dipped 10.6% YoY after the 3.2% decrease in January. “Lower sales to Malaysia (-18.6%), Panama (-29.7%) and Indonesia (-17.3%) contributed the most to the y-o-y decrease of oil domestic exports. In volume terms, oil domestic exports declined by 11.7% in February 2019, after the 1.9% rise in the previous month,” ESG said.

In February, non-oil re-exports (NORX) rose 7.2% YoY, also extending the 12.1% growth in January 2019, due to the increase in both electronic and non-electronic re-exports. Electronic NORX grew 6.7% due to the increase in ICs (+11.0%), parts of PCs (+25.0%) and PCs (+37.6%) exports, whilst non-electronic NORX rose 7.7% on the back of the increase in non-electric engines & motors (+110.0%), petrochemicals (+107.8%) and piston engines (+126.0%).