Singapore's NODX growth seen modest in Jan-Feb

Singapore will release February non-oil domestic export (NODX) data on 16 March.

Standard Chartered notes its forecasts as follows:

We expect NODX to have contracted 1.6% y/y versus a 4.3% increase in January, owing to the Lunar New Year data distortion. 

We expect NODX growth of 1.5% y/y in January-February versus 2.2% in the same period last year. 

NODX was likely affected by sluggish demand in Asia. NODX to Indonesia, Japan and India subtracted 2.4ppt from January data. We expect some improvement by end-2015 on increased demand from the US and Europe. 

We forecast that electronics exports fell 3.8% y/y in February versus a 5.0% increase in January, although electronics demand growth in January-February of 0.7% y/y was stronger than -11% in the same period last year.