Singapore’s exports increased for a third straight month in January as electronics manufacturers shipped more goods overseas, countering a decline in pharmaceutical sales, reported Bloomberg.

Non-oil domestic exports rose 20.8% from a year earlier, after a 26.1% gain in December, the trade promotion agency said in a statement today. The median forecast of 11 economists surveyed by Bloomberg was for an increase of 35%.

“Despite some lingering risks in other parts of the world, this global recovery has otherwise remained pretty much on track, particularly in Asia,” Irvin Seah, an economist at DBS Bank, told Bloomberg before the report. “Singapore’s strong economic linkages with the region should enable her to ride on the next wave of growth from the region. This will bode well for the Singapore economy in terms of export performance and overall economic growth in 2010.”

 

Trade Minister Lim Hng Kiang said last month he doesn’t expect a return to recessionary conditions in 2010 even as exports may grow at a “sluggish pace.” Overseas shipments fell about 11% in 2009, the worst performance in eight years. The government hasn’t provided an exports performance estimate for this year.

 

Singapore’s non-oil exports fell a seasonally adjusted 8.9% last month from December, when they rose a revised 4.2%, today’s report showed.

 

Electronics shipments climbed 22.7% in January from a year earlier to $4.7 billion, after a 25.2% gain in December.

 

Non-electronics shipments, which include petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals, jumped 19.6% in January after increasing 26.8% in December. Pharmaceutical shipments dropped 29.7%.

 

The performance of Singapore’s pharmaceutical industry is volatile as production swings by companies such as Sanofi-Aventis SA can cause industrial output to fluctuate from month to month. Drug companies sometimes shut plants for cleaning before making different products.

 

Exports may increase as more companies open plants in Singapore. Royal Dutch Shell Plc opened a monoethylene glycol plant in Singapore last quarter, while Renewable Energy Corp., a Norwegian maker of solar-power components, is scheduled to start production in Singapore this year.