Singapore's June exports show weak recovery

Singapore's economy is looking rather weak. Non-oil domestic exports rose only 1.3 percent in June after falling 5.3 percent in May. The trend is clearly down.

The only good news is that non-oil retained imports of intermediate goods (NORI), a short term leading indicator of manufacturing activity, rose 11.3 per cent, which would be consistent with the recovery in manufacturing in the second half of the year that many economists forecast.

Earlier, advance estimates of second quarter GDP showed 12.3 percent growth, but that is after a 5.5 percent contraction in the first quarter. The Singapore government has a 2.5-4.5 percent economic growth target for 2005.