XINHUA – Singapore’s manufacturing output fell 1.3 per cent year-on-year in February, reversing a seven-month growth trend, the Singapore Economic Development Board said in a report released.
Meanwhile, excluding biomedical manufacturing, output saw a slight increase of 0.3 per cent. On a seasonally adjusted month-on-month basis, manufacturing output declined 7.5 per cent in February, with a sharper drop of 7.9 per cent when excluding biomedical manufacturing.
The decline was primarily driven by the electronics and biomedical manufacturing sectors, which saw year-on-year output contractions of 6.4 per cent and 14.3 per cent, respectively.
Within the electronics cluster, the infocomms and consumer electronics segment expanded significantly by 32.2 per cent. However, other segments saw declines, including computer peripherals and data storage by 1.5 per cent, other electronics modules and components by 7.3 per cent, and semiconductors by 9.5 per cent.
In biomedical manufacturing, the medical technology segment grew 12.4 per cent on the back of strong export demand for medical devices. Conversely, pharmaceutical output plummeted 30.0 per cent due to a different mix of active pharmaceutical ingredients and lower production of biological products compared to a year ago.
Among other sectors, precision engineering and transport engineering posted growth, while chemicals and general manufacturing saw slight declines.
