Singapore Wholesale Trade Down 1.4% In 2Q 2010
Domestic wholesale trade (seasonally adjusted) declined 1.4% in 2nd quarter 2010 compared to previous quarter.
The drop was largely attributed to lower revenue in chemicals & chemical products and industrial & construction machinery sectors.
Excluding petroleum, overall domestic sales contracted by 3.4%.
Compared to the same period a year ago, domestic wholesale trade in 2nd quarter 2010 grew by 15.1%, with higher sales reported by all sectors except industrial & construction machinery sector.
Excluding petroleum, domestic wholesale trade increased 20.0%.
After removing price effect, domestic wholesale trade volume showed a relatively smaller year-on-year increase of 1.3%. Excluding petroleum, domestic wholesale trade volume rose 15.4%.
Foreign Wholesale Trade
- Compared to previous quarter, foreign wholesale trade (seasonally adjusted) increased 3.1% in 2nd quarter 2010, with most of the wholesale sectors reporting higher sales. Excluding petroleum, foreign wholesale trade grew by 4.4% quarter-on-quarter.
- On a year-on-year basis, foreign wholesale trade expanded by 28.8%, with strong growths in most wholesale sectors. Excluding petroleum, foreign wholesale trade increased 18.8%.
- After adjusting for price changes, foreign wholesale trade volume grew by 13.7% year-onyear. Excluding petroleum, foreign wholesale trade volume increased 14.1%.
Quarter-on-Quarter Change (Seasonally Adjusted)
Most sectors registered quarter-on-quarter declines in domestic wholesale trade after seasonal adjustment.
Chemicals & chemical products and industrial & construction machinery sectors reported decreases of 14.0% and 9.0% respectively. Petroleum & petroleum products, electronic components, food, beverages & tobacco and general wholesale trade sectors also experienced declines of between 1.8% and 5.0% in their domestic sales.
Timber, paints & construction materials and telecommunications & computers sectors, on the other hand, recorded positive quarter-on-quarter growths of 3.7% and 0.9% respectively.
Year-on-Year Change
All wholesale sectors, with the exception of industrial & construction machinery, reported year-on-year growths in domestic wholesale trade in 2nd quarter 2010.
General wholesale trade sector registered a strong positive growth of 63.7% in its domestic sales, compared to the same period a year ago.
Other sectors that experienced double-digit year-on-year increases in domestic wholesale trade include electronic components (25.4%), telecommunications & computers (23.0%), timber, paints & construction materials (21.3%), chemicals & chemical products (19.6%), ship chandlers & bunkering (15.9%) and household equipment & furniture (10.4%).
Domestic sales of the industrial & construction machinery sector dropped 3.0% compared to last year same quarter.
Quarter-on-Quarter Change (Seasonally Adjusted)
After seasonal adjustment, all wholesale sectors (except ship chandlers & bunkering) reported quarter-on-quarter improvements in foreign wholesale trade in 2nd quarter 2010.
Timber, paints & construction materials and petroleum & petroleum products sectors recorded double-digit growths of 31.4% and 12.6% respectively in foreign wholesale trade.
Foreign sales of household equipment & furniture, chemicals & chemical products, industrial & construction machinery and food, beverages & tobacco also rose between 4.0% and 8.0%.
Foreign sales of ship chandlers & bunkering sector however, declined 1.7% over the previous quarter.
Year-on-Year Change
Other than the food, beverages & tobacco sector which registered a marginal drop of 2.1%, all wholesale sectors experienced double-digit year-on-year growths in foreign wholesale trade.
Petroleum & petroleum products, ship chandlers & bunkering as well as chemicals & chemical products sectors reported higher foreign sales of between 23.5% and 42.3%. After adjusting for price changes, foreign wholesale trade volume of petroleum & petroleum products, chemicals & chemical products and ship chandlers & bunkering grew by a smaller 13.3%, 6.3% and 1.3% respectively.
Other sectors that recorded strong year-on-year growths in foreign sales include timber, paints & construction materials (60.0%), industrial & construction machinery (35.1%), transport equipment (30.7%), telecommunications & computers (23.1%) and household equipment & furniture (22.2%).
Introduction
The Wholesale Trade Index (WTI) measures the performance of wholesale trade activities. Two series of the WTI are compiled – the Domestic WTI and Foreign WTI. The Domestic WTI records wholesale sales in Singapore.
The Foreign WTI pertains to wholesale sales outside Singapore, which comprises domestic exports, re-exports, transhipment cargo and offshore merchandise.
The WTI indices are presented at both current prices and constant prices. The indices at current prices measure the changes of sales value which can result from changes in both price and quantity. By removing the price effect, the indices at constant prices measure the changes in the sales volume.
To reflect the changes in the structure of the wholesale trade sector over the years, the weighting patterns of the index series are revised regularly. The WTI series have been re-based from base year 2000 to 2007, the second re-basing exercise since the index was first introduced in 1995. The new WTI series (2007 =100) have been released with effect from 1Q2008 report.
Data Collection
Data for the compilation of the WTI are obtained from the results of the quarterly survey of over 1,000 wholesale establishments. Wholesalers supply the merchandise to manufacturers, commercial and institutional clients for use in production, or to other wholesalers and retailers for resale. Wholesalers may also perform related functions such as sorting, breaking bulk, packing and logistics services. Data are collected from a sample of the wholesale establishments for quarterly domestic wholesale sales and foreign wholesale sales.
Index Compilation
To derive the Domestic / Foreign WTI index at detailed industry level, the quarterly domestic / foreign wholesale sales for that industry is divided by the average quarterly domestic / foreign sales for the same industry in the base year. The overall WTI index is then computed by combining the sales indices of the detailed industries, using the weights to measure each industry’s relative importance in the overall wholesale trade sector.
To derive the constant prices indices, the sales indices at current prices at the detailed industry level are first deflated by appropriate price indices. These component indices at constant prices are then weighted and aggregated to derive the overall indices at constant prices.
Seasonal Adjustment
Seasonal effects are observed in some of the Domestic WTI and Foreign WTI series, due to intrayear periodic variations that repeat in the same quarter every year. Seasonal adjustment is the process of estimating and removing the seasonal effects from a time series to show more clearly its underlying trend and short-term movements.
Topics: 2010, ACU, annualized basis, Asia, biomedical manufacturing output, business, commodities, CPI, Domestic Wholesale Trade, economic activity, economic development, economic growth, economic recovery, Economy, electronic goods, electronics production, employment, engineering, Europe, expansion, finance, forecast, foreign exchange, GDP, global economic downturn, Governance, government, gross domestic product, inflation, investment, jobs, manufacturing sector, Ministry of Trade and Industry, moniter, monitor, MTI, news, Pacific, positive growth, Q2, recession, residential construction projects, second quarter 2010, services sector, Singapore, storage, transport, transportation, wholesale trade
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