Singapore’s manufacturing output rose 7.6 percent year-on-year in March for a fifth consecutive month of growth, albeit at a slower pace than the previous months.
March’s expansion follows a 16.5 percent year-on-year increase in February, according to official data released on Monday (Apr 26).
Excluding biomedical manufacturing, output grew by 14.9 percent in March.
Electronics lead the manufacturing output
The key electronics cluster led the growth in March with a 33.7 percent increase in output on a year-on-year basis.
This was attributed to the semiconductors segment expanding 37.8 percent, supported by demand from cloud services, data centers and 5G markets, said the Economic Development Board (EDB).
The computer peripherals and data storage segments also grew 27.4 percent.
Other clusters that saw output growth include chemicals, which expanded 9.5 percent, as well as precision engineering, which rose 5.6 percent.
Biomedical manufacturing output contracted 6.6 percent year-on-year in March, reversing the 22.1 percent increase in February.
The medical technology segment grew 23.3 percent with higher export demand for medical devices. On the other hand, the pharmaceuticals segment declined 9.6 percent with lower output of biological products.
The transport engineering cluster continued its decline, contracting 20.6 percent in March from the same period last year. The general manufacturing cluster fell at a slower pace, at -0.5 percent.
On a seasonally adjusted month-to-month basis, manufacturing output decreased by 1.7 percent in March. Excluding biomedical manufacturing, output fell 3.2 percent.
Singapore’s economy grew 0.2% in Q1
Singapore’s economy grew by 0.2 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2021.
A turnaround after three quarters of contraction, as the country continued its recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
On a quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted basis, Singapore’s gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by 2 percent between January and March, extending the 3.8 percent growth in the previous quarter, advance estimates by the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI).
Source: Channel News Asia