Singapore's exports fell the most since early 2002 in December as a deepening slump in global economies pared demand for electronics and pharmaceuticals, Bloomberg reported.
Non-oil domestic exports dropped 20.8 percent from a year earlier, after contracting 17.5 percent in November, the trade promotion agency said in a statement today. Economists had expected a 17 percent decline. Overseas shipments fell 7.9 percent in 2008, the worst performance in seven years.
The city-state's economy is in a recession, forcing manufacturers to fire workers and prompting the government to move forward its 2009 budget announcement to speed up its response to the crisis. Overseas shipments are also shrinking in China, Taiwan and South Korea.
"Exports are falling off a cliff across the region and intra-regional demand is also dropping," said Vishnu Varathan, an economist at Forecast Singapore Pte. "It's quite terrible and there's no way Singapore can escape the impact."
Singapore expects overseas shipments to fall as much as 1 percent this year, while some economists are predicting exports will slide 9 percent, a central bank survey showed.
China's exports fell the most in almost a decade in December, while Taiwan's overseas shipments slumped by a record 41.9 percent in the same period.
Singapore's exports fell a seasonally adjusted 13.1 percent last month from November, when they slid 2.8 percent, today's report showed. Economists had expected a 5.8 percent decline.