[SINGAPORE] The country’s manufacturing output fell 1.3 per cent year on year in February, breaking its seven-month expansion streak after the biomedical and electronics clusters fell into contraction.
This missed private-sector economists’ forecasts of a 7 per cent expansion, in a poll by Bloomberg. February’s data is also a turnaround from January’s revised growth of 8 per cent.
Excluding the volatile biomedical sector, February’s industrial production nudged up a slight 0.3 per cent on the year, data released by the Economic Development Board showed on Wednesday (Mar 26).
This was, however, a sharp moderation from January’s revised growth of 6 per cent.
On a seasonally adjusted monthly basis, manufacturing output fell 7.5 per cent in February. Excluding biomedical manufacturing, output decreased 7.9 per cent month on month.
Cluster performance
Output in the key electronics cluster tumbled 6.4 per cent year on year in February, slipping into negative territory after growth of 15.4 per cent in the month prior.
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Most segments within the cluster similarly contracted, with just the infocomms and consumer electronics segment recording growth of 32.2 per cent.
The semiconductors segment fell 9.5 per cent, while the computer peripherals and data storage segment was down 1.5 per cent. The other electronic modules and components segment dropped 7.3 per cent.
Meanwhile, biomedical output contracted 14.3 per cent on the year in February, dragged by the pharmaceuticals segment which tumbled 30 per cent.
Also recording declines were the chemicals sector (-0.1 per cent) and the general manufacturing sector (-0.7 per cent).
In contrast, transport engineering and precision engineering bucked the trend with 16 per cent and 16.2 per cent year on year growth recorded, respectively in February.
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