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Singapore’s export growth accelerated in October as manufacturers shipped more electronics and pharmaceutical goods abroad, an advance that may ease as global growth cools in the coming months.

Non-oil domestic exports climbed 34.5 percent from a year earlier, after a revised 22.6 percent gain in September, the trade promotion agency said in a statement in Singapore today. The median forecast of 13 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News was for an increase of 26.6 percent.

The “stocking cycle in the run-up to the year-end festive season” supported exports, Frances Cheung, a Hong Kong-based senior strategist at Credit Agricole CIB, said before the report.

Singapore’s economy grew at a record pace in the first half of 2010 as the global rebound lifted exports. Still, overseas demand for goods by Asian manufacturers such as Singapore-based Hi-P International Ltd., whose customers include BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd., may cool as the recovery slows.

The island’s economy contracted last quarter as manufacturing eased, a report showed last month.

Electronics shipments by companies including Venture Corp., Singapore’s biggest publicly traded electronics contract manufacturer, climbed 34 percent in October from a year earlier to S$6.5 billion ($5 billion), after a 21.2 percent gain the previous month.

Non-electronics shipments, which include petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals, gained 34.9 percent. Pharmaceutical shipments rose 26.2 percent after climbing 16 percent in September.

The performance of Singapore’s pharmaceutical industry is volatile as production swings by companies such as Sanofi- Aventis SA can cause industrial output to fluctuate from month to month. Drug companies sometimes shut plants for cleaning before making different products.

Singapore’s non-oil exports gained a seasonally adjusted 5.8 percent last month from September, when they fell a revised 4.7 percent, today’s report showed.