Key Analysis
Singapore - Balance of Payments - May 16 2012
BMI View: Despite a decidedly weak external demand outlook, Singapore managed to post nominal year-on-year growth of 6.1% in Non-Oil Domestic Exports in Q112. Still, we caution that China, Singapore's largest national export market, has yet to see the bottom of its structural economic woes, while demand from the EU will also be under pressure as the eurozone crisis continues to simmer. Even with expectations for just 1.8% real growth in exports in 2012, though, the city-state's current account surplus should decline only slightly from SGD71.7bn (21.4% of GDP) in 2011 to SGD67.7bn (18.9% of GDP) in 2012.
Singapore finished 2011 with another strong quarterly current account surplus of SGD17.1bn, bringing the full-year surplus to SGD71.7bn, or the second highest on record behind 2007. The current account expanded by 6.4% over 2010's SGD67.4bn print as exports growth, at 2.6% y-o-y, was able to outpace import growth of 2.4%. However, we believe that the current account surplus has now peaked as a percentage of GDP, and expect a slightly lower figure of SGD67.7bn in 2012 as exports face major headwinds from faltering global demand dynamics.
Non-oil domestic exports (NODX) fell by 4.3% year-on-year (y-o-y) in March as modest growth...
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Singapore - Non-Oil Domestic Exports, SGDmn, & % chg y-o-y
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