SINGAPORE, May 21 (Xinhua) -- Enterprise Singapore, a government agency that champions enterprise development, announced on Tuesday that both Singapore's total merchandise trade and services trade grew at slower paces in the first quarter.
According to the Review of First Quarter 2019 Trade Performance, Singapore's total merchandise trade grew 2.1 percent year-on-year in the first quarter to 246.6 billion Singapore dollars (about 179.3 billion U.S. dollars), as the growth in non-oil trade outweighed the decline in oil trade.
It said that because oil prices were lower than a year ago, Singapore's oil trade fell by 6.9 percent in the quarter, after the 12.8 percent expansion in the previous quarter. Non-oil trade rose 4.5 percent in the period, following the previous quarter's 8.3 percent increase.
The Review added that Singapore's non-oil domestic exports (NODX) declined 6.4 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, compared to the 1.1 percent decrease in the previous quarter, due to decreased shipments of both electronic and non-electronic products.
As for the entire year of 2019, the Review said that the growth projection for total trade is maintained at 0 percent to 2.0 percent, while NODX is adjusted downwards to -2.0 percent to 0 percent.
On the other hand, the Review said that Singapore's total services trade rose 0.7 percent year-on-year in the first quarter to 122.3 billion Singapore dollars. The growth followed the 0.8 percent growth in the fourth quarter of 2018.
In a breakdown, the services exports and imports increased 0.4 percent and 0.9 percent year-on-year respectively. The Review attributes the growth in services exports to the increase in receipts from other business services, insurance services and transport services, which grew 4.8 percent, 32.5 percent and 1.1 percent, respectively.
