Singapore Government Press Release
Media Relations Division, Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts,
MITA Building, 140 Hill Street, 2nd Storey, Singapore 179369
Tel: 6837-9666
SINGAPORE DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS
NOTICE OF PUBLICATION
INFORMATION PAPER SERIES –
RE-BASING AND REVISION OF THE WHOLESALE TRADE INDEX (2000=100)
The Department has been compiling the Wholesale Trade Index (WTI) on a quarterly basis since 1995. The index series consists of two separate components – Domestic WTI and Foreign WTI. The Domestic WTI records sales transactions made locally. It captures the sale of wholesale goods from wholesalers to other wholesalers, manufacturers and retailers whose business operations are in Singapore. The Foreign WTI pertains to wholesale sales outside Singapore. It comprises wholesale exports of goods manufactured in Singapore, re-exports, offshore merchandise and transhipment cargo.
The domestic and foreign wholesale trade indices give a quick overview of the domestic/foreign sales performance of major wholesaling activities in Singapore, thus providing useful and timely information on the sector’s performance in the economy.
To reflect changes in the wholesale trade sector over the years, the index series are revised and updated regularly. The WTI series has recently been re-based from base year 1994 to 2000. This is the first re-basing exercise since the index was first introduced. The new 2000-based WTI series will be released with effect from 3Q2002 index (scheduled for 21 Nov 2002).
The details of the re-basing exercise are provided in an Information Paper titled Re-Basing and Revision of the Wholesale Trade Index (2000=100). During the re-basing, improvements were made to the sampling method and the published industry groupings were expanded to provide more dis-aggregated information. The details are given in the Information Paper. In addition, the paper also presents the revised weightage, index computation method as well as a comparison of the old series (1994=100) with the new series (2000=100).
The Information Paper is available at our Department’s website at http://www.singstat.gov.sg.
Enquiries can be directed to the Business Statistics Division at Tel : 68358996.
SINGAPORE DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS
Nov 2002