SINGAPORE, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- International Enterprise Singapore, a government agency that promotes international trade and partners Singaporean companies to go global, announced on Thursday the country's non-oil domestic exports (NODX) hiked 13 percent year on year in January.

The growth was higher than the growth rates of 3.1 percent in December 2017. The authority attributes the month's growth to the increase in non-electronic NODX, as electronics declined.

On a month-on-month seasonally adjusted basis, NODX declined by 0.3 percent in January to 15.1 billion Singapore dollars (about 11.5 billion U.S. dollars), following the revised 1.9 percent decline for the previous month, due to the decrease in electronic NODX which outweighed the growth in non-electronic NODX.

According to the agency, Singapore's electronic NODX dropped 3.9 percent year on year in the first month of 2018, after the revised 5.3 percent contraction in December 2017. Non-electronic NODX grew 20.7 percent year on year, wider than the 6.8 percent growth in the previous month.

Among the top NODX markets of Singapore, the United States, the European Union's 28 countries and Japan were major contributors to the NODX increase in January, according to the authority. The NODX to them grew 53.4 percent, 16.9 percent and 28.8 percent year on year, respectively.

Meanwhile, the non-oil re-exports (NORX) rose by 4.9 percent year on year in January, after the seven percent decline last December, due to the higher shipment of electronic and non-electronic re-exports.

Singapore's oil domestic exports grew by 15.4 percent year on year in January, following the 19.1 percent expansion in the preceding month. Higher sales to Malaysia, Australia and Indonesia contributed the most to the year-on-year increase. The three markets saw oil domestic exports from Singapore increase 51.6 percent, 56.9 percent and 20.7 percent, respectively. In volume terms, oil domestic exports increased by five percent in January, comparing to a revised 8.2 percent rise last December.

The total trade of Singapore grew 7.1 percent year on year in January 2018. Total exports grew by 9.2 percent in the month, and total imports increased by 4.8 percent.