Singapore’s non-oil domestic exports were reported to have dropped 0.1% year-on-year in May, while marking the fourth straight month of decline.
Yet, the pace has been the slowest in 20 months. It came after a 9.6% YoY slump in April.
A consensus of analyst estimates had pointed to a 0.9% YoY drop.
In May, sales shrank for telecommunications equipment (-54% YoY), pharmaceuticals (-37.5% YoY), consumer electronics (-26.9% YoY), parts of integrated circuits (-26.9% YoY) and electrical circuit apparatus (-21.8% YoY).
In the meantime, shipments rose for integrated circuits (35.8% YoY) and for personal computers (27.2% YoY).
Among trading partners, Singapore’s shipments increased to the United States (8.1% YoY), Asia (15.5% YoY), Oceania (15.5% YoY) and Africa (12.5% YoY).
Conversely, shipments decreased to the European Union, by 4.7% YoY.
The Singaporean Dollar was little changed on the day against its US counterpart, with the USD/SGD currency pair last trading at 1.3514.