Singapore’s export growth accelerated in October as manufacturers shipped more electronics and pharmaceutical goods abroad, an advance that may ease as global growth cools in the coming months.

Non-oil domestic exports climbed 34.5% from a year earlier, after a revised 22.6% gain in September, the trade promotion agency said in a statement in Singapore today. The median forecast of 13 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News was for an increase of 26.6%.

 

The “stocking cycle in the run-up to the year-end festive season” supported exports, Frances Cheung, a Hong Kong-based senior strategist at Credit Agricole CIB, said before the report.

 

Singapore’s economy grew at a record pace in the first half of 2010 as the global rebound lifted exports. Still, overseas demand for goods by Asian manufacturers such as Singapore-based Hi-P International, whose customers include BlackBerry maker Research in Motion, may cool as the recovery slows.

 

The island’s economy contracted last quarter as manufacturing eased, a report showed last month.

 

Electronics shipments by companies including Venture Corp., Singapore’s biggest publicly traded electronics contract manufacturer, climbed 34% in October from a year earlier to $6.5 billion, after a 21.2% gain the previous month.

 

Non-electronics shipments, which include petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals, gained 34.9%. Pharmaceutical shipments rose 26.2% after climbing 16% in September.

 

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.

 

Singapore’s non-oil exports gained a seasonally adjusted 5.8% last month from September, when they fell a revised 4.7%, today’s report showed.