SINGAPORE: Growth in Singapore’s key exports slowed in March ahead of the global trade chaos sparked by US President Donald Trump’s tariff barrage.
Enterprise Singapore noted it is “actively monitoring the evolving tariff situation and will adjust the non-oil domestic exports (Nodx) forecast for 2025 as necessary to reflect the changing market conditions”.
The trade agency had said in February that Nodx are expected to rise by 1% to 3% in 2025, after eking out 0.2% growth in 2024.
For March, Nodx grew 5.4% year on year, worse than expected and lower than the 7.5% increase in February, according to figures released by Enterprise Singapore on April 17.
Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast growth of 14.1%. Electronic exports rose 11.9% year on year – though this was from a low base a year ago.
Growth was underpinned by personal computers, disk media products and integrated circuits. Non-electronics exports grew 3.8% – half the pace of February’s revised 7.7% increase.
Non-monetary gold led the charge with a 64.7% expansion, while pharmaceuticals rose by 24.9%.
Nodx to Taiwan, Indonesia and South Korea grew, though shipments to China – Singapore’s single largest export market – declined. — The Straits Times/ANN
