The Singapore Dollar had an interesting start to the week when the Singapore Balance of Trade and Export stats printed favourably, defying forecasts. Singapore’s trade surprise declined from 8630M in March to 5910M in April, slightly higher than the 5755M forecast. Additionally, Non-Oil Exports recorded 2.2% growth in April on the year after March’s 18.5% surge; a -4.2% decline had been expected. Non-Oil Exports did record a monthly contraction of -8.7%, but this beat the -13.3% forecast after the previous month’s 23.0% gain.
Economic researcher Francis Tan stated: ‘The growth in April came as surprise and exceeded consensus expectations of a 5% year-on-year decline. Last month, we had advised caution on the exceptionally strong NODX figures and that it would not likely repeat in April’s release. Although coming in with a positive growth in April, it was really due to the strong growth rates of some of the more lumpy non-electronic segments. The electronics NODX segment continue to disappoint.’
The Singapore Dollar climbed to a two-week high versus the US Dollar on Thursday, hitting 1.3202 and recovering from a 1.3268 low earlier in the day. However, Friday’s Singapore Retail Sales threw some uncertainty into Singapore Dollar trading when the month of March recorded 1.1% growth rather than the 1.2% forecast. Year-on-year, March’s ecostat fell to 2.1% from a positively revised 14.9% in February; economists had expected a more favourable 4.5%.
May 26
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will see the release of Singapore’s Gross Domestic Product figure for the first quarter, as well as the Singapore Index of Industrial Production. Meanwhile, the highly influential Consumer Price Index will be out on the 25
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of May and is forecast to cause some significant SGD movement. Other factors that may influence the Singapore Dollar will come in the form of raw material price increases as Singapore is a prominent importer of such products. Meanwhile, any decline in the price of Singapore’s most prominent exports, electronics and chemicals, could impact the SGD exchange rate.
The Pound Sterling to Singapore Dollar (GBP/SGD) exchange rate is trending in the region of 2.0731.