Singaporean retail sales decline 8.4 pct year-on-year in January

SINGAPORE, March 12 (Xinhua) -- Singapore's retail sales went down 8.4 percent year-on-year in the first month of 2018, comparing to a re-calculated 6.3-percent rise last December, the Department of Statistics of Singapore said on Monday.

The retail sales dropped 5.4 percent month-on-month on a seasonally adjusted basis in January, comparing to a 0.6-percent month-on-month growth in the previous month.

The authority attributed January's month-on-month decrease to the large decline in motor vehicle sales. Excluding motor vehicles, retail sales declined by a smaller 1.5 percent month-on-month, it said.

According to the department, the total retail sales value in January was estimated at 3.9 billion Singapore dollars (about 2.97 billion U.S. dollars). The estimated proportion of online retail sales to total retail sales is around 4.1 percent.

Meanwhile, the sales of food and beverage services decreased 4 percent month-on-month and 13.2 percent year-on-year in January. The year-on-year decrease was attributed to the influence of the Chinese New Year, which brought higher sales in January 2017 when the festival fell that year. The sales value was estimated at 667 million Singapore dollars (about 507.51 million U.S. dollars). Enditem