Singapore's external trade continued to fall in the first quarter of this year, with declines for total trade, non-oil domestic exports (NODX) and non-oil re-exports (NORX), the city-state's trade promotion agency, International Enterprise Singapore, said Thursday.

This is the third consecutive quarter of decrease for both total trade and NODX. According to the data, the NODX, a key gauge of the trade hub's export performance, contracted 12.5 percent on year in the first three months, following the previous quarter's decline of 4.2 percent, reported Xinhua.

The earlier data also showed that the NODX for April contracted by 1 percent on year. 
The agency said the NODX contraction in the first quarter was mainly due to lower shipments of both electronic and non- electronic NODX. "The contraction was exacerbated by high base effects with NODX reaching a record high of 46.3 billion Singapore dollars ($36.7 billion) in Q1 2012," it added. 

In particular, the electronic domestic exports decreased by 17.2 percent in the first quarter on year, following the previous quarter's 12.5 percent contraction. Non-electronic NODX declined by 10.1 percent on year, in contrast to the 0.6 percent growth in the previous quarter.