Singapore sold 38.4 percent more non-oil goods abroad in May than a year earlier, the biggest annual rise in at least 20 years. Economists polled by Reuters had expected 31.1 percent.
Chips did the work. According to Enterprise Singapore data, demand tied to artificial intelligence lifted shipments of integrated circuits, disk media products and personal computers, as technology firms in Singapore’s main export markets kept spending on AI infrastructure.
Where the orders went
Electronics exports to the United States jumped 303 percent from a year before. Shipments to Taiwan, a key link in the global semiconductor chain, rose 218.6 percent. Exports to China also grew, while those to Indonesia fell.
A tariff threat arrives
The record came at an awkward moment. In June, the U.S. Trade Representative named Singapore among 60 countries it accused of doing too little against trade in goods made with forced labour. It proposed an extra 12.5 percent tariff on Singaporean exports to the United States.
Singapore’s trade ministry rejected the charge and said the city-state actively enforces against such practices at home. It did acknowledge that about a third of its direct exports to the U.S. could be hit if the levy goes ahead.
That leaves a trade-dependent economy leaning hard on one customer. The United States is the most valuable market for Singapore’s electronics sector and also the source of its most immediate policy risk. Exporters and officials are waiting to see what Washington does with the proposal.
