Chart of the Day: Singapore’s export performance to slump even lower

Two months of a decline is dangerous.

Headline non-oil domestic export figure due tomorrow morning is likely to register a contraction of 3.6% YoY.

According to analysts at DBS, while this is less severe compared to a 9.7% drop in February, two months of decline in a row is certainly worth taking note of.

While some may highlight the fact that February export data is often distorted by the Lunar New Year effect, stripping out such festive seasonality still points to a dire outcome.

Meanwhile, export sales plunged by 9.4% MoM saar even if we adjust for the seasonal influence. DBS analysts say that that is awful export performance. In fact, the sequential MoM decline in February is the sharpest since Mar12.

DBS expects export sales probably improved a tad by 1.1% MoM saar in March. But this is still not enough to offset the earlier plunge. For a small and an open economy, if NODX does not recover in the coming months, overall GDP performance will be under severe risk.