Singapore's trade surplus widened to $4.29b in February

NODX dropped 7.9% MoM.

According to Maybank Kim Eng, non-oil domestic exports (NODX) in Feb 2014 rebounded by +9.1% YoY (Jan 2014: -3.3% YoY; Consensus: +7.0% YoY). 

From the previous month, NODX declined by -7.9% MoM (Jan 2014: -2.2% MoM) while the seasonally adjusted measure came in positive (s.a Feb 2014: +7.2% MoM; s.a Jan 2014: -5.0% MoM). Separately, Singapore’s trade surplus widened to SGD4.29b (Jan 2014: SGD 3.97b).

Here's more from Maybank Kim Eng:

Driven by demand from China and US. Shipments to China continued to chalk up double-digit growth for the seventh consecutive month (Feb 2014: +35.4% YoY; Jan 2014: +15.3% YoY) mainly on petrochemicals (+106.7% YoY), primary chemicals (+25.7% YoY) and pharmaceuticals (+820.4% YoY).

Exports to the U.S increased for the fourth straight month (Feb 2014: +22.3% YoY; Jan 2014: +5.3% YoY) indicating that demand from the world’s largest economy is weathering the severe winter.

Manufacturing PMI points to volatile NODX in the near term. The new manufacturing export orders moderated to 51.5 in Feb 2014 from 52.4 reported a month earlier, while the sub-index for electronics new export orders eased to 52.7 from 53.6.