Manufacturing output surges 24.2 percent last month (Photo: straitstimes.com) Singapore (VNA) - Singapore's factory output might be a bright spot in the economy, thanks to the booming pharmaceutical and electronics sectors, according to the country’s Economic Development Board (EDB).
Manufacturing output surged 24.2 percent last month, compared with the same month last year - the biggest year-on-year increase since December 2011.
Excluding biomedical manufacturing, output grew 8.5 percent.
Biomedical manufacturing production expanded by 89.8 percent year on year. On a year-to-date basis, the biomedical manufacturing cluster grew 26.6 percent compared with the same period a year ago.
The electronics sector also posted robust growth of 30.1 percent last month. This was led by the semiconductor segment, which grew 37.4 percent, supported by demand from cloud services, data centres and the 5G market, EDB noted.
The demand for chips remains strong, economists noted.
Chemicals also saw a slight increase in output, by 0.4 percent. The specialities segment grew with higher output in industrial gases and additives. But the petrochemicals and petroleum segments contracted on the back of plant maintenance shutdowns.
The transport engineering cluster recorded a 35.8 percent plunge in output last month.
Growth is expected to remain uneven across different clusters and segments, as some such as transport engineering were hard hit by COVID-19 outbreak./.
VNA
