Singapore Exports Expected To Fall on Chinese Slowdown

Singapore lowered its forecast for exports this year as a slowing expansion in China crimps demand for the nation’s goods, even as services helped the economy grow more than initially estimated last quarter.

Non-oil domestic exports may be unchanged or rise 1 percent this year, compared with a previous forecast of 2 percent to 4 percent, the trade promotion agency said in a statement today. Gross domestic product rose an annualized 15.5 percent in the three months through June from the previous quarter, when it grew a revised 1.7 percent, the Trade Ministry said separately.

Southeast Asian nations from Malaysia to Indonesia have seen exports slump as growth slows in China while Europe and Japan struggle to sustain economic recoveries. Singapore’s exports in June extended the longest run of declines since the global financial crisis as electronics dropped for an 11th month.

“While we are seeing surer signs of bottoming in some places in the world economy, there is no guarantee of a sustained and accelerating recovery from here,” said Vishnu Varathan, an economist at Mizuho Bank Ltd. in Singapore. “Looking at the export sector, it’s premature to declare we are out of the woods. Singapore’s growth support is coming from the services sector.”

The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 11 economists was for a 14.2 percent increase in quarter-on-quarter GDP, and a previous forecast by the government was for a 15.2 percent expansion.

Bloomberg

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