Singapore’s non-oil export growth slowed to a 13-month low in December as shipments of key electronics products and pharmaceuticals declined, signaling more moderate growth in 2011.

Exports rose 9.4% on-year after growing a downwardly revised 9.9% in November, trade promotion agency International Enterprise Singapore said Monday. The pace was slower than the median 10.5% expansion forecast by 10 economists in a Dow Jones Newswires poll.

“The records are behind us and we are likely to go back to a more normal performance of exports,” said Song Seng Wun, an economist at CIMB in Singapore. “The high base of comparison will damp the headline numbers and we expect a business-as-usual pace of 8%-10% growth in exports.”

 

Singapore’s US$300 billion ($387.5 billion) economy, a bellwether for Southeast Asia, bounced back from a 2009 recession to grow an estimated 14.7% in 2010, the fastest pace of expansion on record since independence.

 

Exports dominate Singapore’s economy and are often seen as an indicator of global economic health. In 2010 trade was helped by a rebound in global demand for electronics goods such as tablet computers and smart phones, and by strong performance by Singapore’s volatile pharmaceuticals sector.