Singapore’s exports rose for a 14th month in December, rounding off the best annual performance since 2003, as a global economic recovery boosted demand for the island’s goods.

Non-oil domestic exports climbed 9.4% from a year earlier, after a revised 9.9% gain in November, the trade promotion agency said in a statement in Singapore today. The median forecast of 14 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News was for an increase of 11.1%. Overseas shipments rose about 23% in 2010, the most in seven years, based on Bloomberg’s calculations.

 

Asian economies led a global recovery last year that’s been restrained by sovereign credit woes in Europe and a U.S. job market where unemployment has exceeded 9% since May 2009. Singapore’s gross domestic product expanded a record 14.7% last year, according to government estimates.

 

“Recent modest pickups in purchasing managers’ indices of key export markets are pointing to a steady growth pace in exports as global inventory levels and demand are gradually normalizing,” Irvin Seah, an economist at DBS Group Holdings Ltd. in Singapore, said before the report.

 

Still, export sales in January and February may be “volatile” as factories in China, which buy components from manufacturers across Asia, typically enter a “lull period” during the Lunar New Year festive period at the start of each year, Seah said. This year, the celebration begins from the first week of February.