Singapore manufacturing output miss expectations in December with 2.7% growth

Singapore’s manufacturing output gained 2.7% last month on a year-on-year basis, missing expectations due to output declines coming mostly from the electronics and the precision engineering clusters.

Analysts had expected manufacturing to increase by 4.0% for last month. Excluding the biomedical manufacturing cluster, manufacturing output shrank by 1.8% on a year-on-year basis.

On a seasonally-adjusted month-on-month basis, manufacturing output fell 5.6% in December. For the full year of 2018, total manufacturing output gained by 7.2% on a year-on-year basis.

Manufacturing output down for electronics, chemicals, precision engineering, and general manufacturing products

The electronics cluster, which contributes close to one-third of total manufacturing output, sank 6.8% on a year-on-year basis for last month, reversing from the increase in the previous month. The decline seen in December was due to lesser production output from semiconductors, computer peripherals, and data storage.

The chemicals cluster fell by 1.4%, as an increase in output for petroleum and specialty items were unable to offset the declines in petrochemicals and other items.

Meanwhile the precision engineering and general manufacturing clusters declined by 8.7% and 5.7%, respectively. The precision engineering cluster saw both its machinery and systems segment and precision modules and components segment contract in output, while the general manufacturing industries segment shrank due to a fall in food, beverages, and tobacco, and printing output.

Biomedical manufacturing and transport engineering clusters rise in December

The biomedical manufacturing cluster rose 29.9%, as pharmaceuticals and medical technology outputs rose by 41.2% and 5.4%, respectively.

The transport engineering cluster increased by 23.7%, as manufacturing output for marine and offshore engineering and aerospace segments rose.