Singapore Non-oil Exports Plunge 21 Percent

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SINGAPORE — Singapore's non-oil exports, which account for two-third of the city-state's gross domestic product, dropped by the most in almost seven years in December, further evidence of the country's worst recession in decades.

Exports in December fell 21 percent from a year earlier to 10.5 billion Singapore dollars ($7.0 billion) as consumer demand from Europe, China and the US plummeted, according to Trade and Industry Ministry figures released Friday. Exports fell 13 percent in December from the previous month.

December's decline was the biggest since exports fell 23 percent in February 2002.

"This was yet another depressing Singapore release, with exports heading for a repeat of the huge 2001-02 contraction if not something worse," Robert Prior-Wandesforde, senior Asian economist for HSBC in Singapore, said in a report.

"The bottom line is that Asia is in the midst of the biggest export collapse it has experienced in decades," he said.

Singapore's economy has contracted in each of the last three quarters compared with the preceding quarters. Economic growth slowed to 1.5 percent last year from 7.7 percent in 2007, and the government's GDP forecast for this year is a range between 1 percent growth and a 2 percent contraction.

The drop in exports was led by electronic products, which decreased 25 percent in December, and a 51 percent drop in pharmaceuticals, the ministry said.

Citigroup economist Kit Wei Zheng said the weakness in exports is "intensifying in depth and broadening in scope."

There were few signs of a turnaround in the near term, Kit said in a research note.

Exports, which have fallen for eight straight months, slid 18 percent in November and 15 percent in October from a year earlier.

The city-state's exports to Europe in December fell 34 percent while sales to the U.S. dove 24 percent and to China dropped 3 percent.

Non-oil imports fell 14 percent in December from the same month a year earlier after dropping 12 percent in November, the ministry said.