SG Morning Highlights | Singapore Key Exports Down 15.5% in June in Ninth Straight Month of Decline

Advancers / Decliners is 72 to 53, with 152.11 million securities worth S$127.39 million changing hands.

Developers sold 278 private residential units in June 2023, a 73.2 per cent fall from May's figures of 1,039 units, and fewer than the 488 units sold in the same period the year before.

This is the lowest number of private homes sold this year. The figures, which exclude executive condominiums (ECs), were released by Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) on Monday (Jul 17), based on its survey of licensed housing developers.

Including ECs, which are a public-private housing hybrid, developers sold 297 units, down from the 1,056 units sold in May, and below the 496 units sold in June 2022.

Singapore's export growth is likely to remain weak, economists said, after fresh data revealed nine straight months of contraction in June.

Non-oil domestic exports (NODX) fell 15.5 per cent year on year in June, on the back of declines in both electronic and non-electronic shipments, extending the previous month's decline, data from Enterprise Singapore (EnterpriseSG) showed on Monday (Jul 17).

This was in line with the 15.6 per cent decline that private-sector economists polled by Bloomberg were expecting. In May, NODX fell by a revised 14.8 per cent year on year.

Take-up rates of passenger electric vehicles (EVs) continue to grow in Singapore, thanks to government incentives – but these will need to be extended beyond their end-2023 expiry dates, or even improved, if the Republic is to achieve its clean-transport goals, say industry watchers.

Electrified passenger cars – which encompass battery EVs, petrol-electric hybrids and plug-in hybrids – made up a total of 56.9 per cent of new passenger car registrations in the first six months of 2023. However, the take-up of EVs was flat with 1,892 EVs registered, accounting for 14.3 per cent of new car registrations.

The group's passenger load factor last month also hit a monthly record of 90.6 per cent, marking a 5.1 percentage point increase on a year-on-year basis.

Both SIA and Scoot, the two airlines in the group, posted record passenger load factors of 89.7 per cent and 93.6 per cent for the month, respectively.

The notes will be consolidated with some S$120 million worth of existing notes due in 2028 – which were issued on May 31 – to form a single series. They are part of the group's S$1 billion multi-currency debt-issuance programme, which was established on Jun 28, 2019, and updated on Apr 21 this year.

Interest is payable semi-annually in arrears. The notes will mature five years from May 31, 2023.

On May 11, SingPost said it was evaluating the commercial sustainability of its domestic postal business as part of a strategic review of its portfolio. This came after the group posted a 28 per cent drop in earnings for the second half ended March 2023.

The notes have a maturity period of five years, with an interest rate adjustment option to be exercised by the company and a resale option to be exercised by the noteholders at the end of the third interest-bearing year. They have a subscription rate of 2.25 times.

They were fully subscribed for by institutional investors in the national interbank bond market of mainland China, the company said.