Advertisement
US-China trade war
EconomyChina Economy

Singapore’s trade slump set to continue amid US-China tensions, says senior trade official

  • Singapore’s trade woes are likely to extend into the second half of 2019 due to the impact of US-China trade war, says the city’s permanent secretary for trade
  • The county’s non-oil exports, weighed down by a slump in electronics, have seen six straight months of decline

Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
Japan’s exports fell 8.2 per cent in August to 6.14 trillion yen (US$57.2 billion), with the biggest declines coming from computer and semiconductor-related goods, including semiconductor machinery and integrated circuits, as well as car parts. Photo: Reuters
Elaine Chan

Export-driven Singapore does not envisage an improvement in its trade performance in the second half of the year, according to a senior trade ministry official, reflecting the gloomy outlook held across Asia as global trade tensions halt a recovery in export growth.

Advertisement
From South Korea’s semiconductors to Singapore’s electronic products, exports are sputtering amid a global contraction in trade brought about by economic and political uncertainties and the trade war between China and the United States.

“We are expecting our trade performance in the second half of this year to be broadly similar to what happened in the first half,” Gabriel Lim, permanent secretary for Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry, told the South China Morning Post recently.

The city state’s non-oil domestic exports, a benchmark indicator, shrank 10.7 per cent in the first half of the year, according to Enterprise Singapore, a government agency.

Due to the deterioration of the trade environment, Singapore’s growth decelerated sharply during the first half of the year, with second-quarter gross domestic product growth falling to 3.4 per cent, compared with 3.8 per cent quarterly growth in the first three months of the year.
Advertisement
Advertisement